'Romance' as a term in music (Spanish = romance/romanza, Italian = romanza, German = Romanze, French = romance, Russian = романс) has a long history. Beginning as narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone - as in this example, which seems to originate in Spain. At least that's where and how I heard of it on one of my many journeys there about 40 years ago. And here they still are: vino tinto, paella valenciana, mucheres bonitas, la playa, felizidad, ... - whenever I here or play it. If you can imagine & enjoy your vote will be most appreciated ;-)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a famous poet, painter, designer, translator (not Dante Alighieri who lived centuries earlier) created the paintings in this video. One amongst them called: 'My Lady Greensleeves'
A tune by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in 1580 as: 'A New Northern Dittye of the Lady Greene Sleeves.' No copy of that printing is known. It appears in the surviving A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) as: 'A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green sleeves.' It remains debatable whether this suggests that an old tune of 'Greensleeves' was in circulation, or which one our familiar tune is.
The widely-believed legend is that it was composed by King Henry VIII of England (1491-1547) for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Anne, the youngest daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, rejected Henry's attempts to seduce her...