The western wynde

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The Western 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.

The words 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 "Western Wind" that was used in these masses is not entirely straightforward. There is a version that uses the secular words, but with rather different notes:

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:

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

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

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 on the album "Summer Solstice" and by Barbara Dickson on "Full Circle".

The British band Saint Etienne produced a version of Western Wind on their album Tiger Bay which is similar to the first arrangement above, but with a separate instrumental sequence added between verses.

[edit] Sources

• 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.