Youtor
Fine knacks for ladies John Dowland
>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=tayx_KOvan8
Arranged for men's voices - score available at • http://www.musicaneo.com/sheetmusic/s... • CDBaby: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/dwschorale • itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/fin... • Amazon: http://a-fwd.com/asin-com=B003JV1M9K • This arrangement in D major can be sung by four men Alto Tenor Baritone and Bass • (the second voice can be taken by a second alto and the third voice can be taken by a low tenor if required). • This is also the transposition used by the King's Singers (although their performance also includes a lute part) • This performance is sung by the arranger in his multitrack one-man choir dwsChorale • Interpretation • My theory regarding the meaning behind the words of Dowland's Fine Knacks for Ladies • The singer is in fact a would-be lover but he puts on the persona of a tinker or pedlar (ie a street trader) • and shows his lady his love as if he were selling her his wares • Fine knacks for ladies, cheap, choice, brave and new, - • excellent trinkets for ladies (my love is represented by these) • Good pennyworths but money cannot move, - they would actually cost quite a lot • but I know that money cannot buy you love (hey the Beatles pinched that one!) • I keep a fair but for the fair to view, • I have a stall in a market (or fair) • but my goods (ie love) are only for the beautiful (fair) to see • A beggar may be liberal of love. • I may be a beggar but I can give my love away free! • Though all my wares be trash, the heart is true. • These tinker's trinkets are rubbish but my love is loyal • Great gifts are guiles and look for gifts again, • You may get expensive gifts from richer suitors, • but such generosity only gives rise to greed • My trifles come as treasures from my mind, • accept my trinkets, they are precious and • their value is purely spiritual love • It is a precious jewel to be plain, • The jewels of others are mere tawdriness, • my jewels are plain but all the more valuable because they come from true love • Sometimes in shell the Orient's pearls we find. • Effectively the same meaning as previous line • (referring to the roughness of the oyster's shell and the beautiful pearl within! • Of others take a sheaf, of me a grain. • You may get riches from other suitors, but what you'll get • from me is not much materially (but lots in love) • Within this pack pins, points, laces and gloves, • And diverse toys fitting a country fair, • back to the tinker motif... • (and by the way, be sure to sing the first line staccato in this verse!) • But in my heart, where duty serves and loves, • Turtles and twins, Court's brood, a heav'nly pair. • Now this is the most difficult couplet because I don't recall who the courtly twins were: • some people at the court of queen Elizabeth I, I expect, • or possibly someone at court was born under the sign of Gemini and is being referred to slyly in the song?. • Turtles are of course turtledoves, which represent love because they coo so much! • Happy the man that thinks of no removes. • Similar to Voltaire's cultivons notre jardin - • let us be happy where we are and not concern ourselves with going to, and winning favour at, the Royal Court.
#############################
