One last event from BEMF, Saturday June 23rd. A special concert/demonstration by Paul Leenhouts and the Royal Wind Music for Boston Recorder Society at New England Conservatory. The entire double-sextet plus subcontrabass presented a varied program with introductions to the ensemble, the instruments and the individual pieces. There were demonstrations of the ranges of the recorders, and multiple ones of the lower octave of the largest recorder we will probably ever see, the 10-foot-long subcontrabass recorder in B-flat built in the shop of Adriana Breukink. All pieces were played from memory, there was no sheet music for the one-hour program.
Their recorders are built in the same style, and all tuned to A=460, one of the many standard pitches particular to an early time and place. They blend well and speak clearly and quickly, even in fast passages on the bass instruments.
Questions and answers after touched on topics of arranging, tuning to pure intonation, memorization, rehearsal language (English, for an international group of twenty-something students). Paul explained and gave a demonstration of perfectly tuning thirds, both major and minor. He prefers arranging for the lower voiced consort, since the tenor recorder is the highest pitched one to match a human voice. A good time was had by all.
LayMusic.org 