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## Abstract This chapter explains how execution ballads deployed the tradition of contrafactum, the setting of new words to well-known tunes, that was a feature of balladry, revealing the significance of the choice of music to the transmission of information about the crime and punishment, and to the depiction of the criminal. The chosen melody was indicated with the words ‘to the tune of’, and ballads accrued extra significance because of the associations of previous songs set to the same melody. It also discusses the differences found in Italian execution ballads, which did not contain a tune direction, but instead used one of three different metrical forms depending on how the criminal was to be depicted. Audiences shared a vast knowledge of melody and text that we need to be aware of in order to understand the force that these songs had for their audience.

Author

Una McIlvenna

Publisher

Oxford University PressNew York

Published

2022

Language

EN