The Dutch Song Database
Thursday, November 19, 2015
The Dutch Song Database is a resource for song texts in Dutch, Flemish, and Frisian from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century. The database, which was launched last year, contains descriptions for over 170,000 songs. Links to song text transcriptions, notated music, and sound recordings are included if available. Songs in languages such as French, German, and Latin are included if they were sung in the Netherlands.
Searching is available in Dutch and English. Search tips are available. Links in the records take you to pieces with similar stanza form, melody, and text.
Different collections and repertoires of songs are included to various degrees of completeness, with songs from the Middle Ages being nearly 100% covered. The page Browsing offers a good place to start, where you can explore works such as the Antwerps Liedboek (1544) containing medieval ballads, the Liedekens & Chansons collection (ca. 1600) in which a woman praises the advantages of being unmarried, and The Beggars’ Song Book (geuzenliederen; 1576) that protested the Eighty Years’ War.
You also don’t want to miss the murder ballads, drinking songs, and songs about dogs.
Image: Cover of Een schoon liedekens, also known as the Antwerps Liedboek (source: AntwLb1544). Scan contributed by the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren.
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