Description
Now is the Month of Maying is one of the most famous of the English balletts (a song similar to a madrigal, frequently featuring a with a ‘fa-la-la’ chorus). It was written by Thomas Morley who lived in London at the same time as Shakespeare; he was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England. It was published in 1595 in Morley’s First Book of Ballets to Five Voyces. It forms a key part of Oxford’s May Morning celebrations, where the choir of Magdalen College sing the verses from the roof of the college’s Great Tower.
The song delights in double-entendre. For ‘barley-break’, read ‘a roll in the hay’ for example … useful for a wedding maybe?!
Now is the month of maying,
When merry lads are playing,
Fa la la la la la la la la,
Fa la la la la la la lah.
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass.
Fa la la la la la la la la, etc…
The Spring, clad all in gladness,
Doth laugh at Winter’s sadness,
Fa la la, etc…
And to the bagpipe’s sound
The nymphs tread out their ground.
Fa la la, etc…
Fie then! why sit we musing,
Youth’s sweet delight refusing?
Fa la la, etc…
Say, dainty nymphs, and speak,
Shall we play barley break?
Fa la la etc…
Here in free PDF arrangements for wind quintet, wind quartet, wind trio and bassoon quartet.
