European traditional music from the 18th and 17th centuries

Hello! I've been lurking a little while, now I'm finally getting around to posting for once :)

For a long time I've wanted to put together a collection of European traditional/folk music from the 18th and 17th centuries. Mostly I've been imagining collecting the type of music that would have been played in pubs, fairs, and soldiers' camps during the Napoleonic wars, and perhaps earlier. I've found some tunes at places like thesession.org, contemplator.com, and traditionalmusic.co.uk, but they're mostly famous tunes that I already know (Lilliburlero, The White Cockade, Hearts of Oak, Spanish Ladies, The Parting Glass, Over the Hills and Far Away...). Otherwise, I mostly find enormous collections of tunes with a title and nothing else (that is, no date or history). Also, most of the tunes are British or Irish, while I'd like a more international variety. So, I'm turning to you for help!

Can any of you suggest any good traditional music (instrumental or songs) from the 18th and 17th centuries? Anything will do, but I'd be particularly interested in any English, German, Austrian, Swedish, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese suggestions, if you have any! Thanks in advance!

A good place to start is the collections page on Chris Walshaw's site:

http://abcnotation.com/tunes

If you go through the list carefully you will find some of what you are looking for. Unfortunately most of these won't include much for history. One of the few sites that does anything with the history of tunes is the Fiddler's Companion:

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html

Good luck with your search.

check out allan alexander's collection of songs - many drawn from the english, playford collection:

http://home.earthlink.net/~guitarandlute/

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/nw...book/playford/

You probably ought to listen to some of this music on CDs as a preliminary before trying to learn a batch of tunes. You can find tune collections (ABC code) from various regions, but a lot of it won't make much sense until you've listened to the genres.

The easiest and most convenient way of checking out various countries/ethnicities is by going to the library (or www.half.com) and checking out a bunch of the Rough Guide To The Music of ______________ (and the Rough Guide to World Music books). The discs are usually fairly good (grade B or better), dependent on what recordings could be licensced for the compilation. If you are completely unfamiliar with the country and the band, they are a pretty good introduction.

Here are some bands/artists worth looking for

Sweden: Groupa, Äle Möller & Lena Willemark, Frifot, Väsen, Bäsk, Hedningarna, Garmarna
Norway: Annbjørg Lien, Bukkene Bruse, Ånon Egeland, Sven Nyhus, Knut Buen
Finland: JPP, Värttinä, Ottopasuuna, Koinurit, Tallari, Maria Kalaniemi, Gjallarhorn, Pirnales, Loituma
France (excluding Brittany): Malicorne, Gabriel Yacoub, Maluzerne, Francois Vrod
Hungary: Muzsikas, Ghymes, Marta Sebestyen
Czech Republic: Hradistan, Danaj
Spain: La Musgana, Milladoiro (Galicia), Llan de Cubel (Asturia), Kepa Junkera (Basque), Hevia (Asturia), Carlos Nunez

There are a lot of genres within each reagion (fado - Portugal, rebetiko - Greece, etc. which aren't strictly "traditional", having evolved in the last 100 years or so, just as bluegrass isn't a "traditional" form although it heavily draws from that. Which is why I hadn't listed Greek or Portuguese artists, but there is always first-class trad. bands/singers if you take the effort to hunt them up, often of small indie labels which never get exported beyond the borders of the originating country.

Niles Hokkanen

http://http://www.napoleon.org/en/fu...usic/index.asp

Hopefully this link works, it should bring you to a site dedicated to Napoleon, there are three french songs listed with histories and some sheet music.

I like the sound of this project... now come to think of it did not Frank Harte and Donal Lunny do a compilation of songs from that era?

A quick check and, Yes they did...

FRANK HARTE: MY NAME IS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Frank Harte: vocals

Donal Lunny: bouzouki, guitar

Wow, this is all solid gold so far! Thanks a lot, all! :mandosmiley:

Mandocrucian, thanks for the tips. I'm at least a little familiar with the different musical styles from each of these countries, the biggest trouble I have with finding non-British/Irish music is finding something that fits the time period and that isn't so well-known that it's cliché. And I can't find any traditional Portuguese music that isn't Fado... :) But your list of artists is excellent, thanks!

M.Marmot, I'm definitely going to have to find that CD, thanks!

I'm also gonna add some good French-ish regional traditional musics:

'Rigodon Suavage', an album from a group of fiddlers specialising in traditional french music from the southern alps, especially the Rigodon a dance dating from the 16 - 17 centuries.

http://compagnie.rigodon.free.fr/index.html

Duo Artense: Hervé Capel and Basile Brémaud, this group, violin and accordion, has a nice traditional repetoire from the Auvergne region, including quite a few Bourees

Association cordae/La Talvera: An association dedicated to preserving culture and heritage from the Occitan, South of France. They produce ethnomusical albums/field recordings of original materials as well as music by contemporary folk groups like La Talvera

http://www.talvera.org/en/index.html

Also, if you keep an eye on that fine fine mandolinist Patrick Vaillant you'll find that he has fostered a fine rattlebag of albums of traditional fare, I'd reccomend his work with the Melonius Quartet who often use traditional provencal tunes as well as classical acts such as Satie and Zappa, 'Arco Alpino' an album that presents traditional fiddle musics from the Alpen regions and Chin-na-na-Poum, a collection of songs from 19th century Marseille by Victor Gelu.

From Belgium:

Rococo Rijsel Trio: Gérald Ryckeboer (mandola), William Schotte (Cello) and Gabriel Lenoir (fiddle), these lads play Flemish tunes dating from the sixteenth century, though its not strictly traditional as they do tend to improvise a bit, but its all good.

Luc Pilartz : I have been listening to this guys albums near nonstop for the last while and while theyre all top notch. For your needs maybe his album 'Meslanges' Violon Populaire en Wallonie, which has repertoire drawn from the early 19th-century manuscript of a labourer and musician, François-Joseph Jamin.

I dont know if any of this will be useful to you but i guarentee that most of it will be enjoyable, i'm sure that youtube will carry a selection of this stuff.

Now that i have your project in mind i'll have a looksie in the local library next time i'm there to see if i can find any relevent information for

You might want to check out the Klezmer scene of that period. Khevrisa, pronounced without the 'k', has some really nice stuff. Also Eisner's Klezmorim. I play mandolin in Eisner's Klezmorim... Anyway, here are a few links.

http://www.amazon.com/Khevrisa-Europ...986696-8481765

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/JudithEisner

Thanks for the further suggestions, DougC and M.Marmot!

I'm still just scratching the surface of all these suggestions, but I'm still looking for even more sources covering more countries and styles. If anyone else out there is interested in this topic too, I found some good sources on German folk music at http://ingeb.org/, and an online book (in German) with some good information at http://www.archive.org/details/dasdeutscheliedi00frie.

For Portuguese music, I've discovered the modinha style, which predates fado. Luckily for me, although the style was popular in Portugal, apparently one of the most popular composers was a Brazilian called Domingos Caldas Barbosa, born right here in Rio; therefore I ought to be able to find some of his music in the libraries around here (finding non-Portuguese/Brazilian folk music in libraries or bookshops here is, I suppose, near-impossible). I've also found a (Brazilian) baroque music group called Musica Figurata; many of their songs appear to be folk songs.

Thanks again for all your help, and please don't hesitate to come with even more ideas! :)