In everything we say, there is the ‘tone’ in which we say it, or ‘speech melody’. In that speech melody lies a clear, but limited, analogy with music. When we make ourselves heard over a greater distance by calling out, our speech comes closer to singing.
Calling or crying played an essential role in itinerant street trade. The peddlers’ calls were a characteristic element of the street soundscape of the major cities. We have remnants of this in the form of musical notation since the 19th century. Another source that goes back much further is the quotations of peddlers’ cries in composed music. Whether an authentic cry has been preserved in these compositions is always open to question.
This first of three episodes explores the musicality of speech melody, the cries of street vendors as cultural heritage and musical material, motets of the 13th and 14th centuries, Janequin’s Cris de Paris (1530) and the Cries of London (1600 and 1974).
00:00 Intro
00:37 Speaking, calling, singing
02:18 Street cries
07:14 Musical quotations
09:03 Les cris de Paris
10:37 Fresh strawberries (ca. 1260-1350)
16:57 Clement Janequin (1528)
20:31 The cries of London (ca. 1610 en 1976)
Seller of firewood and his cry. Les cris de Paris avec accompagnement de musique par Vathier (1822).
Music excerpts:
01:21 D. Auber, Les diamants de la couronne: Air et variations. Selma Kurz (1914) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RudRkvpqk
05:20 Anonymous, Won’t you buy my sweet blooming lavender. Janet Penfold. Songs of the Travelling People. Saydisc
06:16, 08:43 Edward German, Who’ll buy my lavender. Grace Moore (1937)
12:06, 13:32 Anonymous, On parole/A Paris/Frèse nouvele (Montpellier-Codex, ca 1250). Clemencic Consort, R. Clemencic. Motetus. Stradivarius STR 33398 (1996)
15:16 Anonymous, Je commence/Et je feray/Soules viex (Ivrea Codex, ca. 1350). Les Musiciens De Saint-Julien. Je Voy Le Bon Tens Venir. Alpha 189 (2013)
18:50 Clément Janequin, Les cris de Paris. Ensemble Clément Janequin, D. Visse. L’écrit du cri. Harmonia mundi (2009)
21:23 Orlando Gibbons, The Cries of London. Theatre of Voices, P. Hillier, Fretwork. Harmonia Mundi (2006)
24:09 John Cobb, These are the Cries of London Town. Deller Consort, A. Deller (1956). Vanguard Classics (1994)
24:31, 26:07 Luciano Berio, The Cries of London. Swingle II (1976). Decca 425 620-2 (1990)
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