I syng of a mayden
"I syng of a mayden" (sometimes titled "As Dewe in Aprille") is a Middle English lyric poem or carol of the 15th century celebrating the Annunciation and the Virgin Birth of Jesus.
The work has been described by Laura Saetveit Miles, a University of Bergen Professor of medieval literature, as "one of the most admired fifteenth-century Middle English lyrics [which] offers, within a deceptively simple form, an extremely delicate and haunting presentation of Mary (the 'mayden / þat is makeles') and her conception of Christ ('here sone')".
[2] Michael Steffes of University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point notes that "'I syng of a mayden' is a very quiet and very beautiful meditation on the inward aspects of the Annunciation, on the immediate consequences of Mary's acceptance of Gabriel's message.
[10] In 1836, Thomas Wright suggested that, although his fellow antiquarian Joseph Ritson had dated the manuscript from the reign of Henry V of England (1387–1422), he personally felt that although "its greatest antiquity must be included within the fifteenth century", some lyrics contained within may be of an earlier origin.
[11] Wright speculated, on the basis of the dialect of Middle English, that the lyrics probably originated in Warwickshire, and suggested that a number of the songs were intended for use in mystery plays.
[11] More recent analysis of the manuscript places the dialect as being of East Anglian origin and more specifically Norfolk; two further carol MSS from the county contain duplicates from Sloane MS 2593.
[13] Alan J. Fletcher, a specialist in Latin liturgical drama and the late Middle Ages, noted in 1978 that a set of contemporary sermons compiled by a writer called Selk (Bodleian MS Barlow 24) quote the final phrases of the poem in such a way to suggest the poem was more widely disseminated and known in its time: Mayde, Wyff and Moder whas neure but ye Wel may swych a ladye Goddys modyr be.
Since the rediscovery of the text, many composers have set the text to music, amongst them diverse choral or vocal interpretations by Martin Shaw,[15] Patrick Hadley,[16] Roger Quilter,[17] John Gerrish,[18] Gustav Holst,[19] Arnold Bax[20] Peter Warlock,[21] R. R. Terry,[22] Lennox Berkeley,[23] Benjamin Britten ("As Dewe in Aprille" in his Ceremony of Carols),[15][24] Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ronald Corp (1975), Philip Lawson a setting published by Walton Music, John Adams (as the chorus "I Sing of a Maiden" in his opera-oratorio El Niño), and Bob Chilcott (in his Salisbury Vespers).
