Programme Notes

MARTIN PRYNN (b. 1958)

JANE BALDWYN¹S WAKE

(First Performance)

Jane Baldwyn's Wake was written this year in response to a commission from the Wimbledon Society, to celebrate the Society's centenary year. The Society was formed (as the John Evelyn Society) in April 1903 by a group of Wimbledon men who included the radical journalist William Stead and Alfred Graves, father of the poet, novelist, and soldier Robert Graves. The Society was renamed the Wimbledon Society in 1983.

Martin Prynn has written the following note about his composition:

'Jane Baldwyn was the wife of a wealthy Wimbledon farmer, John Baldwyn, and in 1569 she was accused of having, over the previous three years, bewitched and killed three villagers, and four pigs. The first dead villager was Elizabeth Bonham, a young orphan who was probably in Jane Baldwyn's care. Then in 1567, a one-year old boy, Richard Hollingsworth died. Again Jane was accused. In March 1569, a certain William Walter lost four pigs, and claimed that Jane had bewitched them.

'Later that year Helen Lingard, wife of Wimbledon miller Hugh Lingard, died just two months after the birth of her thirteenth child. Accused now of "wickedly and devilishly" killing Helen by "incantations and enchantments", Jane was arrested and tried.

'She pleaded not guilty to bewitching Elizabeth Bonham, nor did she admit guilt over Walter's "pygges", but for some reason she accepted responsibility for the deaths of Richard Hollingsworth and Helen Lingard. Why? We cannot tell. But her death sentence was commuted to a year's imprisonment, and she was ordered to stand in the pillory for six hours at a time, on four separate days. Ominously, this is the last we hear of Jane.

'It is odd that his wife's downfall seems to have made little or no difference to the high social standing of John Baldwyn. Even more curious is the fact that just before his death in 1582 he gave some of his land, as a 21st birthday present, to Thomas Lingard, seventh child of Helen, Jane's final "victim".

'This piece of music attempts to portray the shock these events must have caused in the rural village of Wimbledon. After a keening lament, the songs and dances start: it becomes immediately clear this music comes from the streets and taverns of Tudor Wimbledon rather than the church or Manor House. Although some of these tunes might sound as if they come from Jane Baldwyn's time, they are mine -- apart from one. In the first ever collection of country dance tunes, Henry Playford's The Dancing Master, there is a curious fifteen-bar melody called Wimbledon House. Dance tunes written by local musicians were often named after the places in which they were played, although a lot of the tunes had been in existence a long time before Playford's collection. Wimbledon House makes a ghostly appearance on two recorders half-way through Jane Baldwyn's Wake.

After more lamentations and some slightly drunken merry-making, the music calms down, and Jane's voice is heard, played on a distant soprano saxophone. A simple melody on which the whole piece has been based.

'This commission from the Wimbledon Society gave me the opportunity to enjoy again Richard Millward's excellent series of books on the history of Wimbledon. As a grateful ex-student whom he somehow managed to scrape through History O-level at Wimbledon College, I am happy to dedicate this Wimbledon music to him.'

Programme Notes by Paul Vaughan ©

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