A 16th century broadside ballad recently found in Glamorgan reveals that William Shakespeare stole some of his best-loved and most famous lines from a song he must have known in his youth. The broadside ballad sheet was found folded into the back leaf of a household book, circa 1574. The book itself includes no music. This article includes a video performance of the ballad and an account of the plays in which the Bard’s borrowed lines appear.
Romeo and Juliet
The rebec: a short history from court to street
The rebec is a late medieval and renaissance gut-strung bowed instrument with 3 strings, its body carved from a solid piece of wood. Its sound has a nasal quality, unlike the more full-sounding modern violin, which shares some of the rebec’s characteristics: strings played with a bow, a fretless neck, a curved bridge to allow strings to be bowed singly, and a soundboard carved to have a gentle upward curve. Distinguishing the rebec from other medieval and renaissance bowed instruments, in particular the vielle (medieval fiddle), has been a matter of some contention until more recent scholarship re-evaluated the primary evidence.
Though the rebec has gained a reputation as a medieval instrument, it was still being played beyond the renaissance and to the end of the baroque period in western Europe, by now having fallen from grace from a regal courtly instrument to one of lowly street entertainment.
This article begins with a video of Igor Pomykalo playing an Italian Saltarello, c. 1400, on rebec.