Talk:Lord, to thee I make my moan (1592) (John Dowland)

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Disambiguation and confusion over dates

There's also a Lord to thee I make my moan (1597) (John Dowland) (no comma) published in Lamentatio_Henrici_Noel, (Mr. Henry Noell his funerall Psalmes) whose publication date is either 1597 or "1612 in A Pilgrimes Solace" (I can't easily verify IMSLP's data).

The present Lord, to thee I make my moan (1592) is represented by an edition that states it's based on "Esty, The Whole Booke of Psalmes, 1604", and indeed there seems to have been a 1592 printing of that book. It was all a bit confusing at first because the composer page only lists publications beginning in 1597 and Dowland's whereabouts in 1542 were unaccounted for ;-) I do think mention of the 1542 Genevan Psalter belongs in the description notes, though: is the composer of the tune anonymous? Richard Mix (talk) 05:08, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

1. Lamentatio Henrici Noel "...appears to have been composed by Dowland for the funeral service" of Henry Noel in 1596-7 (Diana Poulton, John Dowland, books.google.com). She also writes, "An inscription is added to each of the partbooks of the Lamentation Henrici Noel of 1596..." On pages 330-331, she describes the manuscript of this work; the work in question is shown on page 335. It seems to be accepted that this work was written in 1596, but not published until 1612. It is a very different tune.

2. The Hymn Tune Index lists Este's 1592 publication as code EastTWBP a, and shows Dowland's harmonization of it first appearing in that book. The book was reprinted by Rimbauld in 1844. The 1844 book is useful, in that it has good indices and biographies, but the music has been altered beyond recognition -- not a good representation of what the 1592 book looked like. (I have made some tables showing differences between the various editions of Este's psalter.) Of course, this discussion is relevant also to the harmonizations made by various composers (arrangers) in Ravenscroft's 1621 psalter, as well as several others. This discussion appears also in this talk page. Indeed, HTI shows 146 different printings of music using Whittingham's paraphrase of Psalm 130, including at least seven different composers-arrangers-harmonizers.

3. Looking at the history of this particular tune and words, they were both written in Geneva, the tune by French exiles, and the words by William Whittingham, an English exile. It is likely that these words were written for this tune. Dowland's harmonization (and Ravenscroft's, etc.) came later. To list the composer as Anonymous is counter-productive, since it then gets lost in that enormous page, and the historical link between the tune, words, and harmonization is difficult for the user to find out. To me, the best solution is to title the page as it is, list Composer as John Dowland, publication as 1592, and explain the history and relationships in the description. That puts all of Dowland's works together, but keeps the history. — Barry Johnston (talk) 15:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)