18th December 2024: This Song Hunt delved into the darker side of the festive season, exploring anthropomorphic representations of our primal winter fears, such as the krampus, and the memento mori trope in medieval winter lyrics. I was joined by two wonderful linguist-musicians for the session: Patrick Maiwald – chatting about the band Ephemeral, and their interpretation of a Middle English poem – and Ben Maloney, chatting about the Middle Scots poem Lament for the Makaris, by William Dunbar.
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Video
Music from and beyond the session
The Cardinall’s Musick perform ‘Memento homo’ (Cantiones sacrae, 1575), by William Byrd
‘Wynter’, by Ephemeral
Worldes blis ne last no throwe, performed by Sequentia
Mirie it is while sumer ilast, performed by Ensemble Belladonna
Llibre Vermell di Montserrat, performed by Jordi Savall, Capella Reial de Catalunya, Hesperion XXI
Ad mortem festinamus at 7:10
Resources mentioned
- The Clerk of Oxford blog on Wynter wakeneth…
- Matthias Galler: ‘Attitudes Towards Death in Middle English Lyrics and Hagiography’, Connotations Vol. 16.1-3 (2006/07)