Songs from the Period

Songs in History

In historical games, one element to include is the music or songs of the period. When playing Call of Cthulhu I use period music. One of my favorites for CoC is period jazz, what I call real jazz, not that new jazz. Fortunately, for Call of Cthulhu we have actual recordings of the music from that period. For the Early Modern Period, we don't have original recordings, but there is written music, known period instruments, and groups that recreate the sounds and songs of the period. As an English speaker I find it is easier to find music from the British Isles than from the continent and of course I can understand the lyrics much more easily. Unfortunately for music as for most art and culture, what is easily available follows the major creative periods. So for England the Tudors, especially Elizabethan music is easier to find that music from the later part of James I or the English Civil War period. For France, the reign of Sun King, Louis XIV, glows bright with all sorts of culture, but the reign of his less brilliant father, Louis XIII, is nearly a musical void.

Since my campaign is based in Paris in the 1620s, with excursions thus far to several Provinces, Florence, Belgium, and the Netherlands, I've gathered some music from the period that might be heard in that time and in those places. 

Long Live Henry IV

The first song I looked for was a song that soldiers in that period, especially older soldiers like Gaston would have sung. I found the 1590 Royal Anthem called Long Live Henry IV. Henry IV had a martial reputation and was a dynamic king who became even more popular after his death by an assassins knife. The player decided that this is the favorite song of Gaston Thibeault, the old soldier PC. Here's a more upbeat version with multiple singers, perfect for a tavern drinking song. And finally an orchestral version.

Lyrics in Renaissance French

Vive Henri quatre
Vive ce Roi vaillant
Ce diable à quatre
A le triple talent

chorus
De boire et de battre
Et d'être un vers galant
De boire et de battre
Et d'être un vers galant

Au diable guerres
Rancunes et partis
Commes nos pères
Chantons en vrais amis
chorus
Au choc des verres
Les roses et les lys
Au choc des verres
Les roses et les lys

Chantons l'antienne
Qu'on chant'ra dans mille ans
Que Dieu maintienne
En paix ses descendants
chorus
Jusqu'à c'e qu'on prenne
La lune avec les dents
Jusqu'à c'e qu'on prenne
La lune avec les dents

Vive la France
Vive le roi Henri
Qu'à Reims on danse
En disant comme Paris
chorus
Vive la France
Vive le roi Henri
Vive la France
Vive le roi Henri

Translation

Roughly translated into English:

Long live Henry IV
Long live this valiant king
This fourfold devil
With the three talents

Chorus

Of drinking, fighting
And womanizing
Of drinking, fighting
And womanizing

To hell with wars
And enmity, and spouses
Let us all together
Sing as true friends

Chorus

Clink the glasses
The roses and lilies
Clink the glasses
The roses and lilies

Chorus

Let us sing the refrain
That we will sing in a thousand years:
May God maintain
His descendants in peace
Until we take the moon with our teeth

(i.e. achieve the impossible)

Long live France
Long live King Henry
To Reims we dance
Singing as they do in Paris

Chorus

Long live France
Long live King Henry
Long live France
Long live King Henry

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Bergen Zoom

Bergen Zoom is a Dutch Sea Beggar song commemorating the 1622 Siege of Bergen op Zoom. It's not as well-known as the Siege of Breda that occurred two years later, though even today the town still celebrates the victory with a parade. I included this song since the player characters participated in the siege, helping the townspeople hold off the Spanish Armies of Spinola. And, as it turned out in our campaign history, one of the PCs actually wrote the words to the song and the rest of the group used their status as heroes of the siege to help popularize the song before they left Bergen op Zoom to return to Paris.

1

Merck yet how sterck now it werck sich already set,
That 's all time' so has challenged us free. Heit
Magnesite how slaeft, graeft and draeft violence,
To onse good 'and our blood and onse cities.
Hear the drums Spaensche garner!
Hear Maraens trumpets!
Magnesite how he comes trecken aen,
Occupy mountains.
Berg op Zoom wood you pious,
Support the Spaensche scissors;
Laet country's boom end 'Sijn power
Trouwlijck do save!

2
'T Courageous, bloody, woedige swaerd
Blonck and klonck that the sparks flew daeruijt.
Quake and society, expectoration of AERD,
Wonder thunder now under was now over;
Through all it mines and the guns,
That was heard daeglijcx,
Many Spanjaert in Sijn hut
In his blood choked.
Berg op Zoom wood sich pious,
'T Support the Spaensche scissors;
'T Have the country's boom end' Sijn power
Trouwlijck do save!

3
Of Oranjen quam Spanjen aen board
To Uijt it fells like a tilted too Weeren the violence;
Maer usefull soon Spinola 't heard,
He pulls flux around the leg with all Sijn lords.
Cordua kruijd early on,
Sach daer not win
Don Velasco was disturbed:
'T Flax was not spinning
Berg op Zoom wood you pious,
'T Support the Spaensche scissors;
'T Have the country's boom end' Sijn power
Trouwlijck do save!

English Translation

(based on Bing so I'm sure it is only somewhat accurate)

See how strongly we have advanced. Against those who have always fought our freedom.
See how they enslave, entrench, and attack, to get our goods, blood, and cities.
Hear the Spanish drums beat, hear the Marans’ trumpets!
See how they come along, to occupy Bergen.

Bergen op Zoom, be faithful, stop the Spanish hordes.
They have kept lifetree of the country truly.

The heroic, bloody, angry sword, gleamed and clashed in showers of sparks.
Shaking the earth flying around, amazing thunder, what is now underneath, used to be above.
Because of all the mining and the artillery heard daily, many Spanish were boiling in their blood.

Bergen op Zoom, be faithful, stop the Spanish hordes.
They have kept lifetree of the country truly.

He of Orange set on Spain, in order to come out of the battlefield as a hero and to guard against violence.    
But as soon as Spinola heard of it, he quickly advances by foot, with all his noblemen.
Cordua crawls forwards speedily, didn't see the chance to win.
Don Velasco walked around deluded, it couldn’t be done.

Bergen op Zoom, be faithful, stop the Spanish hordes.
They have kept lifetree of the country truly. 

* "Maraens" is used as an insult, Maraens are what the Spanish call Conversos i.e. Spaniards of Jewish or Moorish ancestry. thus calling into question the ancestry of the Spanish besiegers.

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Chansons

The earliest chansons were the epic poems performed to simple monophonic melodies by a professional class of jongleurs or minstrels. It was followed by the chanson courtoise or grand chant which was an early form of monophonic chanson, the chief lyric poetic genre of the trouvères. It was an adaptation to Old French of the Occitan canso. It was practised in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Thematically, as its name implies, it was a song of courtly love, written usually by a man to his noble lover. Some later chansons were polyphonic and some had refrains and were called chansons avec des refrains. In its typical specialized usage, the word chanson refers to a polyphonic French song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early chansons tended to be in one of the formes fixes—ballade, rondeau or virelai (formerly the chanson baladée)—though some composers later set popular poetry in a variety of forms. The earliest chansons were for two, three or four voices, with first three becoming the norm, expanding to four voices by the sixteenth century. Sometimes, the singers were accompanied by instruments. Beginning in the late 1520s through mid- century, the composers of so-called Parisian chansons abandoned the formes fixes, often featured four voices, and were in a simpler, more homophonic style. This genre sometimes featured music that was meant to be evocative of certain imagery such as birds or the marketplace. Many of these Parisian works were were influenced by the Italian madrigal. Many early instrumental works were ornamented variations (diminutions) on chansons, with this genre becoming the canzone, a progenitor of the sonata.

Air de cour

Later forms included the air de cour, a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650. From approximately 1610 to 1635, during the reign of Louis XIII, the air de cour was the predominant form of secular vocal composition in France, especially in the royal court. So for my campaign the air de cour is the sort of vocal piece that would most often be heard.

German Renaissance Song

Der grimmig Tod mit seinem Pfeil is a German Renaissance Song accompanied by Guitar, Hurdy Gurdy, and Flute. The YouTube video has some appropriate artwork by Hieronymus Bosch.

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Instrumental and Dance Music

Terpsichore (1612) by Michael Preatorius is a compendium of more than 300 instrumental dances, which is both Preatorius’ most widely known work, and his sole surviving secular work.

Claudio Monteverdi was a major composer in the period. A number of his works are still played and are available.

Sarabande

The Sarabande, a dance of Spanish (or possibly South American) origin, was introduced to France c. 1620. The sarabande was part of what was called the Spanish Follies during this period. Although it is anachronistic, I included Handel's Sarabande (HWV437). As none of my players are music historians a bit of anachronism will pass and the piece is lovely.

A famous incident in the period was Cardinal Richelieu's dancing the sarabande before the young French Queen, Anne of Austria. As the story goes, the Queen’s charms inspired the Cardinal with a wild and presumptuous passion which was perceived by Madame de Chevreuse, who disliked the Cardinal. In order to play him a trick she led the Cardinal to believe that Anne of Austria would listen to his suit if he would but satisfy a whim of hers which made her earnestly desire to see him dance the sarabande! And this was not all, he must dance it “in a complete suit, such as was worn by the Pantaloon of the theatre,” which is red and green suit made in an absurd fashion, one leg red and the other green, and trimmed with silver bells – besides which his eminence must wear a cap trimmed with bells. 

Madame de Chevreuse had not told the Queen what promise she had made in her name, and when the Cardinal, having finished his sarabande, fell at the Queen’s feet and declared his passion, Anne, though almost convulsed with laughter, recovered herself sufficiently to repulse the minister with scorn and indignation. Tricked and laughed at! This was sufficient to awaken a life-long hatred in the heart of Armand de Richelieu. Happily, some of my players were able to witness this crucial event.

In my campaign I use the sarabande as the 1620s version of the tango: sexy, romantic, and daring.

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Other Military Songs

Musketeer Marches

La Marche des Mousquetaires Noirs is the song of the Black Musketeers. The Black Musketeers (named for the black horses they rode) were formed after the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661 when his guards passed to King Louis XIV who had the guards incorporated into a second company of the King's Musketeers. The first company was then called the Gray Musketeers from the color of their horses. So the song is anachronistic, but since I don't know what tune, if any, the Cardinal's Guards used, I may use it for that.

Marche des mousquetaires is by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 – 1687), so it too is a bit of an anachronism, but several of Dumas' main characters in the Three Musketeers are also anachronisms.

Thirty Years War

The Thirty Years War was the Early Modern version of our World Wars. All the major European powers were drawn in in some way. And all of the armies used mercenares. Mercenary was an international occupation in the Early Modern Period and German mercenaries could be found in the armies of any of the combatants. France had a German regiment in this period and more than one in the expanded army of Louis XIV.

Die Landsknechte kommen-Trum, trum, terum tum tum is from the Thirty Years War and refers to one of the famous commanders, Wallenstein. Landsknechtes were German foot, mostly pike. Just in case you didn't get enough trum, terum, tum, tuming, here's a second version. 

Unser Liebe Fraue (Our Beloved Lady) is another German mercenary song dating from 1536. I like the tune better than Trum, trum. The lyrics are here.

No Thirty Years song collection would be complete without a song honoring the Lion of the North, Gustavus Adolphus: Praetorious - Volte du Tambour.

And Sweden's armies would not have been as successful without their Finnish Cavalry. So here's the March of the Finnish Cavalry.

Die Streuner

Die Streuner (The Strays in English) is a German band focusing in medieval music formed in 1994, which regularly plays at markets and festivals. I like there sound so I give you two of their songs.

To my ear Des Geyers schwarzer Haufen by Die Streuner has an Eastern European lilt to it. I'd love to know more about the history behind this song and the meaning of the lyrics.

Lyrics

Die Streuner - Es wollt ein Bauer früh aufstehen
Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen - Heyah Heyoh
Wir wolln mit Pfaff und Adel raufen - Heyah Heyoh
Spieß voran - hey! Rauf und ran
Setzt aufs Klosterdach den roten Hahn

English Translation

The strays - black pile of the Geyer
The strays - it a farmer want to get up early
We're Black bunch - Heyah Heyoh of Geyer
We follow with PFAFF and nobility fighting - Heyah Heyoh
Spit hey! Up and ran
Sets the Red Rooster on the roof of the monastery

Here's another song, "In Jedem Vollen Becher Wein" by Die Streuner. 

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The Thirty Years' War seems to have been full of singing.

Have you used period music in historically based games? If not, I encourage you to give it a try.