I found the pretty melody of The Begger Boy in John Playford’s The Dancing Master (1651). It is a very short melody and dancers and musicians would have gone crazy if they played it the same way round and round. Here must have come into play variations/improvisations — for sure.

So I decided to convert it into a trio, to add tenor and bass lines, counterpoints and variations on the melody. When I did this, I first thought of my recorder consort Vox Tremula, but it does work just as well for a melody instrument and a polyphonic instrument etc.

Please feel free to download and share these music scores!

J. Playford & M. Cord-to-Krax — The Begger Boy: Facsimile (706 downloads ) , My Variations (858 downloads )

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I’m a professional freelance recorder player, so if you enjoy and use these music scores — please consider inviting me on a coffee 😉

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Listen to the piece:

J. Playford & M. Cord-to-Krax — The Begger Boy

Vox Tremula: Milena Cord-to-Krax, Elena Escartín & Gonzalo Llao, recorders
David Ruiz, percussion