Songs of Love, from Court to Country (10/10/24)

Bud Roach, tenor and theorbo
Gotham Early Music Scene

First question, class. Do we all remember what a theorbo is? Yes! A lute on steroids. It is plucked/strummed like a lute but has a much longer neck with much longer strings.

Now, on to the music. There were seventeen pieces—no, I'm not naming them all. I'm not even naming all of the composers. Ah, the composers. They were born between 1567 (Claudio Monteverdi) and fl. 1695 (William Thomson). What's fl. you ask? I had to look it up, too. It denotes a date or period during which a person was known to be alive or active (flourished). Other composers were Maurizio Cazzati, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Henry Purcell, John Blow, William Lawes, et al.

OK, we've all learned something. The end. 

I'm kidding.

Here's the thing. The first half of the program was sung entirely in Italian, though translations of the texts were provided. The second half was sung in English, with texts provided, though one had a strong Scottish flair to it. I really did learn some new things, as I only recognized the names of two of the Italian composers and four of the English composers.

OK, finally, now on to the music. It was all very much the same. Songs of lamented love. There were a (very) few tempo changes. There was one piece that was strophic with a repeated refrain. At least the repeated refrain was an anchor we could recognize and cling to (the refrain, not the anchor).

Two were dialogues, which made them more effective. In the Merry Month of May (John Wilson (1595–1674)) gave us the story of Phillida and Corydon. In Johnny and Nelly (William Thomson (fl. 1695–1753)), we had Johnny and Nelly trading dialogue with that distinct Scottish flair—"To fields where cannons rair, thou need nae grieve thee", etc.

Mr. Roach sang with a clear sound (little to no vibrato), and the theorbo accompaniments were simple yet effective. And that's the closest I'll get to an actual review, which is not my intent of writing these blogposts. 

ConcertMeister

 Concordian Dawn (9/19/24)

Le Roman de Fauvel

Amber Evans ~ soprano & percussion; Thomas McCargar ~ baritone; Niccolo Seligmann ~ vielle & percussion; Christopher Preston Thompson ~ director, tenor & harp

Le Roman de Fauvel is a fourteenth-century mish-mash of story telling and music—a precursor, I guess, to opera. What we got was a diluted mish-mash. As explained from the stage, we were to get a storyline from start to finish of Fauvel. The ending, at least, worked.

This scaled-down version gave us eighteen pieces. We got printed English translations, in modern-day English, of the French. We also got English commentary between some of the eighteen pieces—not necessarily helpful.

All of the performers were stellar. And there were solos (unaccompanied), small group performances (tenor, vielle, baritone, tambourine), soprano and vielle—oh, what's that, you ask? It's a stringed instrument that seems to bridge the gap between a viola and a cello, played upright like a cello, but smaller—oh, and it can also be strummed like a guitar. Hmm, I guess that wasn't too helpful. Go to your rabbit holes now. And there was at least one movement that included all four performers.

The harpist (it was a relatively small, hand-held instrument) also sang while playing, sometimes.

We got to the meat of this interpretation of the sprawling work in movement ten. A duet between Fortune (female) and Fauvel* (male). It doesn't work out well for him. We were told from the beginning that the piece would be performed straight through but that we could applaud at any time we wanted to. We waited until the end. There was humor, there was drama, and there was farce. The percussion included the aforementioned tambourine and what I think was a hand-held cymbal (single-level seating made it difficult for me to see) and maybe a triangle. Oh, and the final piece ended with "This song needs to drink." I'll drink to that.

This was a great beginning to an early music concert series. I'm not sure I'll attend every week, but I have the first half listings, so I can pick and choose.

*Fauvel is described as an orange-hued half-donkey/half-human whose contentious rise to power unsettles a nation, serving as an allegory ... I'll just let this sit here.

ConcertMeister