Westron Wynde

Westron Wynde is an early 16th-century song whose tune was used as the basis (cantus firmus) of Masses by English composers John Taverner, Christopher Tye and John Sheppard. The tune first appears with words in a partbook of around 1530, which contains mainly keyboard music. Historians believe that the lyrics are a few hundred years older ('Middle English') and the words are a fragment of medieval poetry.

Lyrics

The lyrics of the original were decidedly secular:

'Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine.
Cryst, if my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!'

Recovering the original tune of Westron Wynde that was used in these Masses is not entirely straightforward. There is a version that uses the secular words, but with rather different notes:[1]

"Western Wind" secular lyric version

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The version used by the three Mass composers can only be inferred by what they put into their Masses. In program notes (see below), Peter Phillips offers the following reconstruction:

"Western Wind" Mass version

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But this is not always exactly what appears in the Masses; thus the New Grove quotes the following sequence from Taverner's Mass:

"Western Wind" Taverner's version

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For the words being sung here, see Mass (music).

Recordings

Westron Wynde was put to music by Igor Stravinsky as a movement (Westron Wind) of his Cantata (1952).

The American folk group The Limeliters (Louis Gottlieb, Alex Hassilev, and Glenn Yarbrough) recorded a version using a variation of the first tune above, with modern English stanzas interpolated. Both the variation and the interpolated stanzas were most likely written by the Limeliters themselves, one of whom (Gottlieb) was a musicologist and would have been familiar with the original song.

The British guitarist John Renbourn recorded his own arrangement of the tune for two guitars on his 1970 album The Lady and the Unicorn. The song has been recorded by Maddy Prior and Tim Hart on the album Summer Solstice and by Barbara Dickson on Full Circle.

The British band Current 93 recorded an extended and modified version of the song sometime between 1982 and 1995, adding various new lines. This version, however, was not released until 2010.[2]

Susan McKeown and The Chanting House perform poet Robert Burns's version of the song entitled "Westlin Winds" on the 1995 album "Bones."

British composer Roger Jackson used the text and added a new verse in an entirely new setting in 2014.

"Eye of Heaven, pray gently smile,
And though the cold wind blow,
Soft, may you warm and mind my love
That I do love her so"

Versions

Both simplified and distorted versions of this poem have been printed over the past many years. These include both tampered and accurately modernized versions. For example William Chappell inserted 'O' at the start of the poem and replaced the word 'Cryst' with 'Oh' in his 1859 version. The latter was probably done to make it a safe reading for women and children in the 19th century context. He also included 'doth' between 'down' and 'rayne' based on his probable interpretation that the wind did blow the rain away. Some modernization of spellings was done by other editors to make the poem accessible for modern reading.[3]

The poem is used by:

References
  1. London: British Library MS Royal Appendix 58, f.5; also Benham, Hugh: Early English Church Music vol. 35, John Taverner: IV, Four- and Five-Part Masses. London, Stainer & Bell, 1989
  2. "Current 93 – Unreleased Rarities, Out-Takes, Rehearsals And Live 82-95". Discogs. Discogs. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  3. Frey, Charles (1976). "Interpreting "Western Wind"". The Johns Hopkins University Press. 43: 259–278 – via JSTOR.
  4. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101004/

Bibliography
  • Peter Phillips's reconstruction is taken from his program notes for his recording Western Wind Masses: Taverner, Tye Sheppard, released 1993 on compact disc by Gimell Records, 454 927-2.
  • The remaining musical examples above are adapted from versions given in the online version (2004) of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
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