Fortune My Foe
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"Fortune My Foe", also known as "The Hanging Tune" is an Irish and English Slow Air<br> in 3/4 time in G major (Williamson) or F Major (Flood). Internet sources describe the tune<br> given in Williamson as being in E minor when it is obviously in G major.<br> The parts are played AABB.<br> This 16th century Irish tune was used, according to Flood, in 1576 for a ballad<br> on the death of a great patron of music, Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, in Dublin, entitled<br> "Welladay, or Essex's Last Goodnight". The tune appears in several early collections,<br> including William Ballet's Lute Book (1593), The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book where the setting<br> is by the famous English composer William Byrde (1528-1625) and William Foster's Virginal<br> Book (1624). It was licensed as a ballad in 1565-6 and is mentioned in Shakespeare's<br> The Merry Wives of Windsor.<br> Various songs and ballads came to be sung to the tune, including an early ballad<br> "Titus Andronicus' Complaint" on which Shakespeare founded his play. Most of these songs<br> seem to have been about themes of gloom, misery, and death.<br> Chappell, in his Popular Music of the Olden Time (1859) gives an extended description of<br> uses from many sources, include Roxburghe. He gives only one melody from the Bagford<br> Collection of Ballads which differs from the one given here by being in 4/4 time and G minor.<br> Williamson writes "'Fortune My Foe' was sung and played so frequently at<br> public executions that it became known as 'The Hanging Tune'...'Fortune My Foe' originated<br> in Ireland. The setting written here is believed to be the earliest version". <br> It was printed in Flood's A History of Irish Music (1906) and Williamson's English,<br> Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes (1976).<br> The version given here is from Williamson.<br>
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