Musica Scotica Vol VIII: Robert Johnson - Songs [download]

Edited by Elaine Moohan and Kenneth Elliott.

Secular vocal music by Johnson includes the recently recovered partsong To do so still (SAT). It includes the characteristic melodic upward leap of a seventh found also in the anthem-like setting of Defiled is my name (SATB). This latter is traditionally linked with Anne Boleyn (d. 1536), but is musically more akin to Johnson’s sacred compositions of around 1550. Ty the mare, tom boy, is an extended song that survives only in a single Cantus part in a manuscript of Durham provenance, perhaps dating from Johnson’s sojourn in the north of England, possibly about 1530. The similar recurring melodic phrases imply recurring harmonies, and further consideration suggests that it might be composed on a ground, and this is what emerges. In approaching a reconstruction (for ST plus instrumental bass), it is clear that the gaps between the phrases in the top part allow for an imitative part. Com palefaced death (for S plus three instrumental parts) by ‘Johnson’ could be a theatre piece in the newly developing consort song style of the 1560s, or it may be by a younger contemporary of the same surname.

From Musica Scotica Vol VIII: The Complete Works of Robert Johnson, full volume available here.