ie iren selten firen
Und machend den andren tanz" [fn]
[And the woman with her hurdy-gurdy / seldom lets her instrument rest / and gets everybody to dance].
Here the hurdy-gurdy is not only played for dancing, but the line "land die iren selten firen" ["seldom lets her instrument rest"] also shows that the hurdy-gurdy player was in great demand as a dance musician. Further testimony from this time:
"Egkerleich sol ain leirn han,
Schürzenesl sol die truml schlan,
Götz und Panz Sollen machen den tanz" [fn].
In the 17th century the hurdy-gurdy was still played frequently "vor
den Thüren und auff Jarmärkten / Bauren Täntzen und Kirchweyhen" [fn]. [translation JW: "at the gates and at annual markets / country dances and church fairs"]. We do not know how the dance music played on the hurdy-gurdy sounded. The "Ungarescha" in a collection by Jacob Paix, dated 1583, could however provide one reference point (ex.1). [fn]
A 16th century French report relates the story of a man from the Auvergne, who with his four boys and his hurdy-gurdy traveled throughout all of France [fn]. The boys sang and danced and the father sang and played the hurdy-gurdy. A few references of the narrator indicates which dances the boys performed to the accompaniment of the hurdy-gurdy. He reports for example how well and precisely the boys could dance the branle and how well they could mark the beat with their wooden shoes in the clog dance [fn]. On the advice of an old player in Lyon the narrator should sing his chansons in the Provençe and above all play the lively bourrées of the Auvergne, This would distinguish him from the players there and make him popular [fn]. In Toulouse he played his dances on the Promenade, received much money for this and noted: " Les Toulousains aiment beaucoup à danser" [fn][translation JW: "Toulousians really love to dance"]. This report must be dated to the reign of Henri II since the harder times of Francis I are repeatedly referred to. [fn]
Likewise from the 16th century comes the description of the marriage of King Anarche in Francois Rabelais' (1494-1553) 'Pantagruel'. Just one single
blind hurdy-gurdy player was engaged for the celebration, and he had to provide the dance music for the guests: "et, pour les faire dancer, loua un aveugle qui leur sonnoit la note avecques sa vielle" [fn]. [translation JW: "and, to make them dance, hired a blind man who played on his hurdy-gurdy"]. Even in the 17th century people gladly danced to the sound of the hurdy-gurdy after supper: "Le souppé finy l'on fit joüer au vielleux toutes sortes de danses, et les jeunes hommes qui estoient là monstrerent la disposition de leur corp au son d'un agreable instrument" [fn][translation JW: " after supper the hurdy-gurdy players were requested to play all sorts of dances, and the young men present displayed their physical fitness to the sound of this pleasant instrument"].
In 16th century France the hurdy-gurdy for a little while found a use which it had already once had in the Middle Ages: it belonged for a brief period to the court instrumentarium of the last king of the house of Valois, Henri III. The proof that it was played at the king's court is provided by the beautiful instrument of illustration 178 (see page 155) which is decorated with the French coat-of-arms and the initials of the king and his mother. Already at that time then the hurdy-gurdy was represented at the French court. It did not however become the favorite instrument of the French aristocracy until the 18th century.
An individual repertoire for the hurdy-gurdy can be first established only in the 18th century, namely when the interest of the French aristocracy for bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies increased so much that music was composed especially for these instruments. The reasons which led to the rise of bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy into the courts of France lie in this society's search for a way of passing the time. Next to other entertainments in 17th century France there also already existed a preference for shepherd and peasant plays which, other than in the England of Eliz