Il Pastor Fido and John Milton

[doversoul1]

Saturday
Giovanni Battista Guarini's Il Pastor Fido was one of the most famous plays of the 17th Century and 300 years ago London saw the premiere of Handel's Opera based on Guarini's text. However, Handel was far from the first to use this play as inspiration for his music. Il Pastor Fido had already sparked the imaginations of numerous composers. Catherine Bott explores the play and some of it's musical offsprings, including music by Monterverdi, Schütz and and Sigismondo d'India.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g4sl4

Sunday
Catherine Bott meets Richard Rastall who has been revisiting music by two little known 17th Century English composers: John Milton, the father of the famous poet, and Martin Peerson. The programme includes recordings of some of the music by Ex Cathedra, Sophie Yates and Fretwork with countertenor Michael Chance.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01g4syn
(I’m sure this is a repeat but never mind. Interesting all the same)

Also on CD Review, 10.40
Richard Wigmore joins Andrew live in the studio to discuss recent Baroque opera recordings. including Vivaldi’s Orlando Furioso

[ardcarp]

Oh dear, the blurb has a grocer's apostrophe...or should it be grocers'? The Beeb's fault not yours, Doversoul. But I'll listen anyway!

[Chris Newman]

Oh dear, the blurb has a grocer's apostrophe...or should it be grocers'? The Beeb's fault not yours, Doversoul. But I'll listen anyway!

I shall try to listen too, Doversoul.

ardcarp, I am with George Bernard Shaw on apostrophes...they should be abandoned. The intention is clear enough in most sentences. I never admitted that in all my years as an English teacher, but most other languages manage without them. I recognise that we need disciplines like grammar but the apostrophe is an archaism lying in wait to trap the average mortal.

[vinteuil]

ardcarp, I am with George Bernard Shaw on apostrophes...they should be abandoned. The intention is clear enough in most sentences. I never admitted that in all my years as an English teacher, but most other languages manage without them. I recognise that we need disciplines like grammar but the apostrophe is an archaism lying in wait to trap the average mortal.

... and the fact that up to the mid-19th century the regular form for the possessive of it was it's - see Coleridge and many others - gives strong support to this. I like pedantry - but I like advanced pedantry - and an overweening obsession with the grocerses apo's trophes's - is - to me - the sign, possibly, of a mind that has yet to evolve to higher things ...

[jean]

...I like pedantry - but I like advanced pedantry...

So do I.

Here are some examples from the OED:


1603 J. Florio in tr. Montaigne Ess. Ep. Ded. sig. A3v, My weaknesse you might bidde doe it's best.

1603 J. Florio in tr. Montaigne Ess. iii. xi. 612 Nothing remooveth from it's owne place.

1605 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. i. ii. 71 And tempers with it's moist-full coldnes so, Th' excessiue heate.

1623 Shaks.'s 2 Hen. VI iii. ii. 393 The Cradle-babe, Dying with mothers dugge betweene it's lips. [So Temp. i. ii. 95, 396; Wint. T. i. ii. 153, 154, 159, 268; iii. iii. 45.]

1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. i. 26 The Load-stone‥forgetteth it's Property to draw Iron any longer.

1728 T. Sheridan tr. Persius Sat. Prol. (1739) 5 Who taught the Parrot it's usual Compliment?

1751 Bp. G. Burnet & T. Williamson tr. T. More Utopia Author's Epist. 32 If he consents to it's being published.

1801 M. Edgeworth Forester in Moral Tales I. 57 Her warning only accelerated it's fate.


(It is the Early Music Show, after all!)

[vinteuil]

Jean - thank you - thank you!!

- lovely exempla...

[Nick Armstrong]

This is a distinctly superior thread

[Panjandrum]

So do I.

Here are some examples from the OED:


1603 J. Florio in tr. Montaigne Ess. Ep. Ded. sig. A3v, My weaknesse you might bidde doe it's best.

1603 J. Florio in tr. Montaigne Ess. iii. xi. 612 Nothing remooveth from it's owne place.

1605 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. i. ii. 71 And tempers with it's moist-full coldnes so, Th' excessiue heate.

1623 Shaks.'s 2 Hen. VI iii. ii. 393 The Cradle-babe, Dying with mothers dugge betweene it's lips. [So Temp. i. ii. 95, 396; Wint. T. i. ii. 153, 154, 159, 268; iii. iii. 45.]

1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. i. 26 The Load-stone‥forgetteth it's Property to draw Iron any longer.

1728 T. Sheridan tr. Persius Sat. Prol. (1739) 5 Who taught the Parrot it's usual Compliment?

1751 Bp. G. Burnet & T. Williamson tr. T. More Utopia Author's Epist. 32 If he consents to it's being published.

1801 M. Edgeworth Forester in Moral Tales I. 57 Her warning only accelerated it's fate.


(It is the Early Music Show, after all!)

Obviously, poor spelling and grammatical ignorance isn't something new then.

[jean]

The Old English genitive form his for centuries had to do duty for it as well as for he. For example:

1623 H. Cockeram Eng. Dict. iii. G vj, It hath cruell teeth and scaly back, with very sharpe clawes on his feete.

This could be quite confusing. The translators of the KJV were clearly bothered by it, and resorted to circumlocutions of various sorts to avoid it:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

So from the seventeenth century onwards, people began to use a new form derived from the pronoun it by analogy with the now-established way of forming the possessives of nouns, standardised from the earlier geinitve forms. Thus it is not suprising that we often find an apostrophe used in early examples before common practice came to ally the new form with other pronouns rather than with nouns.

Besides, this is really nothing to do with the greengrocer's apostrophe, which is more properly one of these:

Not knowing all this is grammatical ignorance of the worst possible sort.

[ardcarp]

most other languages manage without them

But our tragedy is that we use them for letter omissions (as the French do, n'est-ce pas?) and for possessives (which the French don't...nor any other European language I can recall but no doubt someone will correct me).

My pedantry is of the lowest kind, so I'll just crawl back into my primeval slime....and maybe try to re-evolve along with other proto life forms such as Truss and Humphreys.

[ardcarp]

PS Enjoyed Il Pastor Fido!

[Dilbert]

Catherine Bott's history of Il Pastor Fido was informative and entertaining, and did not neglect the wider perspective.

I thought the programme was excellent.

[ardcarp]

Hear, hear!

[ardcarp]

In fact Ms Bott is in such excellent form, I can heartily recommend a listen:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01g4sl4

I just have for the second time.

Some lovely music too.

[ardcarp]

..and one might as well continue with:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01g4syn

Pearson and Milton (snr) played and sung mainly by Fretwork (brilliant) and Ex Cathedra Consort (lovely sound, maybe a bit wooden). Another enjoyable and informative edition hosted by Ms Bott.