Dear Monica,
Thank you for your two messages, and for correcting my mix-up of French queens. Yes, it was Catherine, not Marie, who was mother of Queen Elizabeth's "Frog". The Aria del Gran Duca was first performed at the Florentine Intermedii in 1589, and eventually became one of those tunes which everyone knew, and it turned up in many different guises. I am sure you are familiar with it yourself. Dowland visited Florence in 1595, and played the lute to Ferdinando I. He would no doubt have heard about Ferdinando's sumptuous wedding which had taken place six years earlier. He would have met Italian composers there, and it seems unlikely that the famous Aria would have passed him by. "Now, oh now" was published two years later in 1597. Catherine de' Medici was a Medici, so her son, the Duc d'Alencon, was the son of a Medici. Ferdinando I, at whose marriage the Aria was first performed, was also a Medici. There is a Medici link between Fernando and Alencon. Ferdinando was a great duke, the Gran Duca of the "Aria del Gran Duca". Alencon was also a duke, le Duc d'Alencon. Ferdinando and Alencon were both dukes. Much of what I wrote was already in the public domain, and the link between Alencon and "Now, oh now" has been accepted by most people now. What I think is a new discovery, is spotting the link between "Queen Elizabeth's Galliard" and "Say love". As with "Now, oh now", it's not just the melody notes which are the same; it's the bass and harmony which are the same too. Best wishes, Stewart. -----Original Message----- From: Monica Hall [mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk] Sent: 23 January 2014 19:46 To: Stewart McCoy Cc: Lutelist Subject: Re: [LUTE] Say love and Queen Elizabeth Well - I don't know about the rest of it - but the Duc d'Alencon was the youngest son of Catherine de Medici, the wife of Henri II of France. Marie de Medici was the second wife of Henri IV and the mother of Louis XIII. The Duc d'Alencon died in 1584 and he wasn't a Medici grand duke - he was a prince of the house of Valois. The Medici wedding was between Ferdinando de Medici who was only very distantly related to Catherine and the French princess Christine of Lorraine of the Guise family. The link with Dowland seems rather tenuous. Would he even have known about the Medici wedding?. Monica ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stewart McCoy" <[1]lu...@tiscali.co.uk> To: "Lute Net" <[2]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Thursday, January 23, 2014 7:11 PM Subject: [LUTE] Say love and Queen Elizabeth > Dear All, > > > Earlier today I was accompanying Dowland's "Say love, if ever thou > didst find". I remarked to the singer and gamba player, that people > today often assume the song refers to Queen Elizabeth. Though not > named, she is likely to be the song's "she". > > > A similar use of the word "she" occurs in "Now, oh now I needs must > part" and "Can she excuse". The titles of their instrumental settings, > "The Frog Galliard" (Frog = Duc d'Alen,con) and "The Earl of Essex > Galliard", point us to the names of the characters referred to in "Now, > oh now" and "Can she", which in turn suggest that the Queen must be the > unnamed "she". > > > The first few notes of "Now, oh now" match the first few notes of the > well-known "Aria del Gran Duca", a piece first performed in 1589 in > Florence for a Medici wedding. The Duc d'Alenc,on was the son of Marie > de Medici, Queen of France, so Dowland appears to be using music for a > grand duke at a successful Medici wedding in his song about a failed > courtship by a different Medici grand duke. > > > In the second part of "Now, oh now", there is a modulation to the > supertonic; there is a similar modulation in the second part of > "Monsieur's Almain". "Monsieur" was the name commonly used for the Duc > d'Alenc,on; "Frog" was Queen Elizabeth's nickname for him. > > > Many years ago I wrote on this list about "Now, oh now" and its > associations, and there were some who were not convinced. They argued > that such things were mere coincidences, yet musical references abound > in music from this period. Another example is a quotation from "The > Sacred End Pavan" in "Henry Unton's Funeral", showing that Henry has > come to his own sacred end. Dowland's "Farewell" has links with a > madrigal by Weelkes, and references to Dowland's Lachrimae for weeping > (e.g. John Bennet's "Weep oh mine eyes") are ubiquitous. > > > If the first few notes of "Now, oh now" point to the Duc d'Alenc,on, > what about the first few notes of "Say love"? This afternoon I noticed > that they are exactly the same as the first few notes of Dowland's > "Queen Elizabeth's Galliard". Was Dowland using his own galliard to > show that the song really is about the Queen? > > > Best wishes, > > > Stewart McCoy. > > > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > [3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:lu...@tiscali.co.uk 2. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
