to celebrate the Saint's Day. This ode, introduced by an overture, was presented with music. The individual parts consisted of recitatives, instrumental pieces, and vocal pieces with instruments, among these an air sung and played with the text:
"With dead, dull, doleful, heavy hums,
With mournful moans,
And grievous groans,
The sober Hurdy-Gurdy thrums" [fn].
Edward Jones reports of an old custom which in his time, the end of the 18th century, was still practiced in Oxfordshire and North Wales. There at Christmas times mummers marched about presenting old plays, dancing and singing and receiving apples or nuts in payment. In some of these events the mummers grouped together with musicians and sang this tune accompanied by the hurdy-gurdy:
"My father he killed a fine fat hog,
And that you may plainly see;
My mother gave me the guts of the hog,
To make a Hurdy-Gourdy" [fn].
In the 18th century therefore the hurdy-gurdy in England still belonged to those instruments which were used in country
festivities, probably for dancing [fn].
Even during the height of vocal polyphony in the 15th and 16th century, in Spain the hurdy-gurdy and the songs it accompanied, the romances and the 'canciones' derived from these, lost none of its popularity with the nobility and the common people: "Y si la Reina Católica tenía sus cantores e instrumentistas, también nos dirá luego Cervantes que las gentes de ciudad cantan romances viejos y nuevos acompañándose de la zinfoña en las horas de reposo común" [fn] [translation JW: And if the Catholic queen had her singers and instrumentalists, Cervantes would later tell us that the town's folk sung old and new 'romances' accompanied by the hurdy-gurdy in their leisure time.] In the 16th century the romances disappeared gradually from the popular music of Spain and were partly replaced by religious songs which were presented in a tired and complaining tone. These religious and sentimentally presented songs were recalled even up until the 20th century in the Andalusian and Levantine coastal regions, when blind beggars presented their songs or prayers in the last week of Lent to the accompaniment of a guitar, which replaced the old hurdy-gurdy ("con su guitarre en sustitución de la antigua zanfoña".) [fn] [translation JW: "with their/his guitar instead of the old hurdy-gurdy"].
In Germany besides the accompaniment of secular songs the hurdy-gurdy also served in the performance of religious songs. Of one hurdy-gurdy player it is reported in the 17th century that she had "einer Äbtissin auf einem grossen und reichen Stifft zu gefallen ihre Leyr gestimmt / um derselben ein Liedlein: und zwar ein geistlichs / aufzuspilen" [fn]. A similar report concerning the playing of sacred songs is given somewhat earlier by Sethus Calvisius in a letter to Michael Praetorius, in which he says of the hurdy-gurdy that it has three drone strings and one melody string, on which a choral piece was played to the constant sounding of the drones: "auff der Leyre aber wol drey oder vier
Seiten / als Nemblich eine Quinta, vnd Octava, zugleich durch drey Saiten: Vnd wird darnach vff andern Clavirn welche die vierde Saeite treffen vnd anrühren / etwas anders im füglichen Choral darin moduliret". In the same context Calvisius mentions that the choral piece was played on the hurdy-gurdy like a shepherd's dance. "Dieselbe Claves haben sie stets gehen vnd Thoenen lassen / vnd darnach einen Choral der aus dem c / d / oder e / gangen / vnd sein Fundament darinnen hat / darein geschlagen / wie man auff dem Instrument ein Schaeffertanzt schlegt" [fn]. With the reference to playing dances on the hurdy-gurdy, Clavisius indicates the use of the instrument for dance music. The author mentions this explanation of the manner of playing a choral piece on the instrument and seems thereby to be giving expression to a well known fact With this he also indicates the most important function of the hurdy-gurdy in the later centuries.
In Germany the hurdy-gurdy served also in the 15th century as an instrument for dances:
"Und die wib mit den liran
Land d