The Cantabile
Band plays every year on the first Sunday in May at the Walk for Hunger, at a
beautiful spot on the banks of the Charles River, near the
Cambridge-Watertown line.
Some years we’ve had as many as 11 people (which is a mistake
because the right half doesn’t have any idea what the left half
is doing). The last two years we’ve been down to 4, and had to
recruit people from the guest group that gives us a couple of
breaks in order to do Now is the Month of Maying,
which has 5 parts.
This year, I thought we had four poeple, but one of them has
been falling down and getting herself injured, so she’s decided
she doesn’t want to make the commitment. So we’ll be a
trio.
It’s the right three people — if you were going to pick three
people from the people who come at all often, these are the
three you’d want. There are some problems because the best
singer doesn’t play an instrument, so it won’t be as easy to
intersperse instrumental versions of the things we sing to give
voices and audience a break, or to just play three part dance
tune arrangements instead of learning songs.
So here’s what we’re going to be drawing from for the
program:
- Weelkes,
Ayres and Fantastic Spirits - Thomas
Morley, Canzonets
for 3 voyces, and maybe the Canzonets to two
voyces. - Thomas
Ravenscroft wrote a lot of good three-part stuff. - William
Byrd. - Various three-part things in the Drinking Songs
collection. - Maybe other three-part rounds.
- Maybe some stuff from the Glogauer LIederbuch
or the Odhecaton, but we might decide to just
stick to our core English repertoire. - Two part improvisations from Playford.
- Improv on things from The Division Flute.
There should be enough there to put together a sprightly,
upbeat program, of the kind that if you’d just walked 15 or 20
miles and needed a break would encourage you to have a pleasant
rest, but not make you feel like you never wanted to get up
again.
LayMusic.org 