Author: Laura Conrad

We’ll be at John’s place (310 1/2 Pearl St. in Cambridge) starting at 8
PM. 310 1/2 is behind 308, down a long driveway. They don’t enforce
the permit only parking there in the evening, so there shouldn’t be a
problem parking on the street. Let me know if you need more
directions than that. His phone number is (617) 661-3353.

We’re expecting Anne (voice), Bonnie (voice, recorder, bass viol),
Laura (voice, recorder, serpent), Ishmael (voice, recorder, fiddle),
Bruce (voice, recorder, trombone), and Stuart (cello).
If this list is wrong in any respect, please let me know. Also let me
know if you need me to bring any music.

I’ve given all the part assignments top voice to bottom voice.

We’ll be working on the playlist for the April 2 gig, which is a
subset of the playlist of the May 1 gig, so people from both gigs are
coming. We will probably do only two or three pieces, and work on
them pretty intensely.

There’s a problem practicing for the April gig, because we have two
five-part pieces, and only 5 people playing, one of whom doesn’t play
an instrument, so we may decide not to do our usual instrumental then
vocal route for those pieces.

April is in my mistress’ face

April part assignments: instrumental: Bruce, Laura, Ishmael,
Bonnie.

Vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bonnie and Bruce.

Stuart will probably be playing bass in May, but it might make sense for him
to also learn the tenor, so maybe he should play tenor this week.

Clear or Cloudy

April part assignments: Anne, Bonnie, Ishmael, Bruce, Laura. We will
fiddle with whether there’s an instrumental that makes sense at the
March 29 meeting. Stuart should play bass, and that way we can also
do the May configuration where Bonnie and Anne will both be on the top
line, and Laura will be on Altus.

Quintus is between Altus and Tenor in this piece.

Silver Swan

Make sure you have the version in Eb (three flats in the
signature).

April part assignments: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie.
Again, we’ll fiddle with an April instrumental version on March 29,
Stuart will play bass so Bonnie and Anne can both sing top line.

Quintus is between Cantus and Altus in this piece.

Me, me and none but me

April part assignments: Instrumental: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael,
Bruce. Vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce. I’d like to see if this
works a capella, in which case Bonnie can sing top line with
Anne, and we can do the instrumental completely on recorders, since
it’s a recorder society gig. If not, Bonnie will play viol with Bruce
on the vocal, and probably also on the instrumental version, in which
case Bruce will play top line in the instrumental.

In any case, Stuart will play bass except when we’re experimenting
with what we can do without him.

Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno

Same assignments as Me, me and none but me.

It was yet another “Wow, we had 4 people” meeting on a dark and stormy
night. Everybody had either walked and had ice blown into their faces
by the blizzard-force winds or driven and had to chip their cars out
of several inches of ice.

We decided that the April 2 performance would be a combination of the
April music and the Swan music. So it will be a subset of:

• Morley, April is in my Mistress Face
• Dowland, “Clear or
  Cloudy” This one is also in the
  2004 book with the Tenor A section printed with the Quintus B section.
• Gibbons, Silver Swan
• Dowland, “Me, me and none but me”
• Arcadelt “Il bianco e dolce cigno”

I will do timings, and we may decide at the last minute to do more
verses of the better-sounding ones rather than fewer verses of the
ones that don’t sound so good. Surprisingly, last night “April is in
my Mistress’ face was in the latter category, so I may ask Lisa to let
me know if anyone else is doing that one. Although the last I heard,
we may be the only group with more than 3 players.

That list is what we’ll be doing with John Tyson on March 15, so
please let me know if you aren’t able to print them all, so that I can
have enough copies.

If the weather improves enough that we start being able to work on
five-voice pieces, we may add the Vecchi “Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno” for
the May performance, but I think it’s too late to do it in April.

So here’s what we did:

1. Bicinia, several Fantasias
2. Bastienne, Bastienne, vous avés changé d’amis
3. April is in my Mistress’ face
4. Me, me and none but me
5. Arcadelt, Il Bianco e dolce Cigno
6. Clear or Cloudy
7. Josquin, Adieu mes amours
8. Mouton, Adieu mes amours, double canon
9. Quand je bois

I think “Adieu mes amours” will work well as part of a set about
having no money, with “Quand je bois”.

We will be meeting tonight, Tuesday, March 8, at the usual time and
place.

Performing

We have to decide both what we’re playing on April 2 and what we want
to work on with John Tyson next week.

I know Barney said he couldn’t make it on March 15, but he’s also
not playing April 2, so that’s OK. I’ll be having a lesson with John
on Thursday, and talking to him then about what we want to work on, so
if any of Anne, Bonnie, Bruce, Ishmael, and Stuart can’t make it on
the 15th, I’l like to know by the 10th.

I’ve been saying that it will be either drinking songs or river music,
because April 2 is too early for May music. But lately I’ve been
thinking that there are two April songs on the May music program, both
of which are based on the same Italian poem. So my current thinking
is we do those, and either two “Silver Swan”s or two “Rivers of
Babylon”s.

So:

• April is in my mistress’ face
• Clear or cloudy

And either:

• The Silver Swan
• Arcadelt, Il blanco e doce Cigno

Or:

• Estans Assis
• Campian or Billings

Right now I’m leaning towards the Swans, on the grounds that it’s a
recorder society event, and the Billings isn’t really a recorder
piece.

So I want to run all of the above tonight, as well as the Vecchi
“Il bianco e dolce Cigno”.

New Music

We didn’t run the three-part Dowland I transcribed last week. It may
take more time that we have, but if not, it would be good to not leave
it on the spindle for too long.

John and I have been doing a couple of settings of “Adieu mes amours”,
and if I get around to transcribing the one from the Odhecaton, we
might do those.

If the weather leaves us with only three parts, we have a bunch more
French stuff to read through, or we can struggle through the Dowland 3
part things again. And of course run the French drinking songs.

If it’s only two parts, some of us will be getting good at Morley or
Lassus or someone.

Future directions

We have another deadline we should be considering, which is that the
Boston Early Music Festival is happening in June. The last two
festivals have been fairly fertile recruiting grounds for us, so we
should think about what direction we want the group to move in, since
that will affect how we want to advertise it.

Currently, the group is serving several functions:

1. A place to sightread a lot of music that nobody hears or plays
   very much.
2. A performing group.
3. A place where people who are learning a new instrument can play it
   with others.
4. A place for people to play and occasionally perform that doesn’t
   require a weekly commitment.

(1) has been fairly consistent over the years; (2) is more
important now than it was two or four years ago, and (3) is losing
importance, although it was uppermost in my mind when I formed the
group, and is still emphasized in the website description.

(2) and (3) are pretty incompatible; (1) is actually an asset for
(2) although of course it takes up time we don’t have in the heat of
performance preparation. (4) is also incompatible with (2).

So I think the real thing we have to decide is do we want to emphasize
the performing, in which case we would probably want to recruit only
other people who are interested in performing, and would want to
reduce the drop-in component, and the encouraging beginners on new
instruments.

As you may have noticed, the rehearsal schedule for the upcoming
performances is a weekly schedule, although I’m not expecting everyone
to come every week. I’m considering reducing the drop-in component to
the group by saying that it meets every week, and possibly designating
one or two meetings a month as particularly suitable for new members
to come.

So we’ll talk about some of this tonight, and if you can’t make it
tonight but have opinions, please let me know.

Personnel

Here’s who I think is playing with us:

On April 2:

• Laura
• Anne
• Bruce
• Bonnie
• Ishmael

At the Walk for Hunger on May 1:

• Laura
• Barney
• Patricia
• Anne
• Bonnie
• Stuart
• Ishmael
• Paul

If I’m missing anyone, or including anyone erroneously, let me know as
soon as possible.

Dates to save

• March 8, only for people playing one of the gigs who can make it
  easily.
• March 15. We’ll be meeting with John Tyson and concentrating on
  the April 2 music. This meeting may take place at John’s place,
  details later.
• March 22, only for people playing one of the gigs who can make it
  easily.
• March 29 (this will be limited to and compulsory for the
  people playing the April 2 gig.)
• Saturday, April 2, 2-4 PM, Central Square Library. We will be
  playing for 15 minutes, either the river music or the drinking songs
  set.
• April 5, only for people doing the Walk for Hunger who can make it
  easily.
• April 12, only for people doing the Walk for Hunger who can make it
  easily.
• April 19, with John Tyson, again. We’ll be able to discuss the
  April 2 performance, and do some of the stuff for the Walk for Hunger.
• April 26 (limited to and compulsory for the people doing
  the Walk for Hunger.) Stuart (I think) told me he was mostly
  concerned about Roaring Jelly rehearsals before NEFFA, and didn’t mind
  missing this one.
• Sunday, May 1, Walk for Hunger. I haven’t set the schedule, but
  it’s likely that it will be like last year, where we play the same 45
  minute program twice, with someone else playing a set in
  between ours, ending at about 3 PM. So plan on 12:30 to 3:00,
  and coming to the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse afterwards.

If you’re on the list of people who are playing, and you can’t make
the compulsory rehearsals, please let me know.

Between 10 inches and snow and a contra dance at MIT, this was another
low-attendance rehearsal.

• Phalese Bicinia:
  • O Maria, mater pia
  • Per illud ave prolatum
  • Qui sequitur me
  • Sancti mei
  • Fulgebunt justi
  • Sicut rosa
• Campian, My love hath vowed he will forsake me
• Dowland two-part songs from Second Book:
  • Flow my tears
  • Sorrow, sorrow stay
  • Dye not before they day
  • Mourne, mourne
• I gave her cakes and I gave her ale

Performing notes

On the Campian, “My love hath vowed he will forsake me” we decided
that we will sing 4 verses, with solos on the A sections of 1-3.
Everyone not playing the bass will sing all B sections, and the A
section of verse 4. The bass part isn’t idiomatic for serpent, so it
will be played by cello and/or viol.