Midnight Viols – Gotham Early Music Scene (10/23/25)

England’s Glory: Country Dances, Songs and Consorts of the Golden Age 

Caroline Nicolas ~ treble viol; Charlie Reed & Lisa Terry ~ tenor viol; Patricia Neely & Sarah Stone ~ bass viol; Gene Murrow ~ concertina & recorders; Ruth Cunningham ~ voice, flute & recorders  

English Country Dances – Musical Arrangements by Marshall Barron from The Dancing Master, John Playford
Indian Queen (1701) ~ Beggar Boy (1651) ~ Beaux of Oak Hill – Traditional  

Fantasia a 6, No. 2 – William Byrd (1540‒1623) 

Come Again – John Dowland (1563‒1626)  

Fantasia a 6, No. 2 – Orlando Gibbons (1583‒1625)  

From Pavans, Galliards, Almains and other short Aeirs – (1599) Anthony Holborne (ca.1550‒1602)
The Cradle ~ The Honie-suckle ~ The Widowes myte  

Pavan Passamezzo a 6 – Peter Philips (1560‒1628)  

Awake Sweet Love – John Dowland

English Ballads and Country Dances – John Playford
Greensleeves ~ Greensleeves and Yellow Lace (1721); Broom of the Cowdenknows ~ Broom, the Bonny, Bonny Broom (1651); The Joviall Broom Man ~ Jamaica (1670)

What is a viol? At this concert, I learned that it is a viola da gamba, a six-stringed, bowed instrument with frets on the fingerboard; hence, it is in the guitar family, not the cello family, even though it is played vertically, like a cello.

On to the music. First up was a set of three dances. The first was jolly and included the concertina and a recorder. The concertina is a free-reed and bellows instrument similar to, but smaller than, an accordion and plays in the range of the violin. The second dance was slightly subdued and had a flute introduction, then all five viols joined in. The third dance had two recorders, five viols, and it was slightly sprightly. 

The Byrd Fantasia seemed strophic and fugue-like, sort of like an instrumental song. The first Dowland piece, Come Again, was very familiar to me, and was scored for viols (two or three, I couldn’t see the hands of some of the viol players) and soprano. Vocal verse, instrumental repeat, second vocal verse, instrumental repeat with a bit of vocals added to round out the piece. 

The Gibbons Fantasia had very dense writing for the viols, richly textured, and then had the concertina join in. The Holborne was another set of three dances—a somber, but not a downer, Pavan for four viols and concertina, then an Almain that was jaunty and dance-like in a sedate way, with a recorder added into the mix, while the third was a Galliard that was also jaunty with interesting shifting rhythms. 

The Pavan Passamezzo a 6 was essentially several sections that were all tied together by a repetitive bass line. The bass line was played solo before the piece as a demo, but with the richly textured writing for the five viols, I wasn’t as aware of the bass line as I thought I would be. 

Awake Sweet Love (Dowland) was scored for soprano and four viols and was sweet and almost simple, though not truly simple. 

The last piece looked like six pieces but wasn’t. It was a set of three songs, each in two parts. Each tune was introduced, and then the piece that followed was based on its preceding tune. For instance, Greensleeves was performed by the soprano and a single viol; Greensleeves and Yellow Lace began with concertina with two viols and then the other viols joined in. The same format was followed for the Broom pair of songs, though the first tune was not familiar to me. The final pair started with soprano, concertina and three viols. The second version was tutti—jolly and full bodied, with a recorder added to the fun. It was a great ending to the concert.   

ConcertMeister

I hope to add a photo; that may need to wait for my Facebook posts.

Mexamorphosis (10/9/25)

Chamber 

Guadalupe Peraza ~ director, mezzo-soprano; Sinuhe Padilla-Isunza ~ jarana, voice, percussion & dance; Jae Lee ~ harpsichord; Baba Moussa ~ talking drum; Hsei-Mei Tracy Chang ~ soprano; Papa Classima ~ voice   

Les Barricades mystérieuses from Second Livre de pièces de clavecin, Sixième Ordre – François Couperin (1668‒1733)
El Buscapiés – Traditional Mexican, Son Jarocho (Veracruz)  

Così mi disprezzate (Aria di passacaglia) – Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583‒1643)
Las poblanas – Traditional, Son Jarocho 

Jarabi (Love) – Traditional, West African  

Accenti Queruli – Giovanni Felice Sances (ca. 1600–1679) 

Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti, SV 251 – Claudio Monteverdi (1567‒1643)
Guacamalla – Traditional, Son Jarocho 

This was another Gotham Early Music Scene concert.

First things first, what is a jarana? I won't saddle you down with a lot of technical info, but it's similar to a guitar, with eight strings, and a complicated layout of those strings. What is a talking drum? A West African hourglass-shaped drum that is said to mimic human speech. I did not experience the simulation of human speech. What is Son Jarocho? It is a style of Mexican folk music.

While I enjoyed the concert, the application of the Son Jarocho style of playing to François Couperin, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Giovanni Felice Sances, and Claudio Monteverdi made everything sound a lot like the same thing over and over. Lots of rhythmic strumming, harpsichord present but usually overpowered, and the mezzo-soprano and the male vocalist doing pretty much the same thing over and over. That said, the mezzo-soprano did some operatic-style vocalizing in the Frescobaldi, as did the soprano in the Monteverdi. But since those pieces were often grouped with the folk-style pieces, and some of the folk-style playing was included in the pieces that preceded, the effect was a lot of the same stuff we just heard.

Jarabi (Traditional West African) had a little more energy and the vocalist was quite charismatic. But it ended in the "same stuff" category, even with the addition of two different styles of hand-held drums.

The jarana player also added percussion a few times and added a bit of rhythmic flamenco-style dancing. In Guacamalla, all six of the performers seemed to be enacting a jam session in the Traditional Son Jarocho style. They were then joined by four other instrumentalists (I think I saw a rebec – a round-backed pseudo-violin, and three jarana players – apparently the jarana comes in various sizes). It was a great finale.

I doubt that I would seek this group out again, though. They did what they do; they knew what they were doing; it was all too similar for my taste.

ConcertMeister

Gotham Early Music Scene (10/2/25)

Edson Scheid, violin
J.S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin

Sonata No. 1 in G minor, BWV 1001 Johann Sebastian Bach (1685‒1750) 
Adagio
Fuga (Allegro)
Siciliana Presto  

Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002
Allemanda; Double
Corrente; Double (Presto)
Sarabande; Double
Tempo di Borea; Double 

Interesting info from the violinist. The Sonata No. 1 was written in 1720. The first performance was in 1840, with piano accompaniment written and played by Felix Mendelssohn. The first recording, as a solo work, was in 1933, by Yehudi Menuhin. 

The first movement of the sonata was tuneful in a slightly sad way. It was mostly a single line, though there were some double stops. That’s where the violinist plays two strings at the same time, creating a two-toned chord. For the record, there were no electronic score problems since he played both pieces from memory. The second movement was livelier and fuller, with the opening motif repeated fairly often but in varied ways. More on that later. It was the longest of the four movements. The third was slower and lovely while the fourth was off to the races, fiery and fast-fingered. 

A note about the doubles in the partita. Also as announced by the violinist, the partita is really four movements. The double portion is the previous movement played a second time with the notes in a different style/order. Are you confused yet? I was.

The Allamanda was energetic in a subdued way, possibly an effect of the B minor key. The double (repeat) was not really clear to me. The Corrente was similar to the first movement, though more fluid—lots of running notes. I liked it a lot. Just as I was writing 'too long?' the movement ended. So the answer was no. The double was a lot faster, a tour de force, (Presto) indeed! The Sarabande was slower and somewhat fuller. The word thoughtful came to mind. The last movement was Tempo di Borea, which sort of stumped me.

I recognized the first three movements as dance names (though they didn’t really strike me as dance-like). It turns out that Borea is a synonym for Gigue, so that made sense. It was more sprightly than the Sarabande, and somewhat cheerful, in a minor-key way. The double for the final movement was much livelier, and a great way to end the concert. 

ConcertMeister