Category: bemf 07

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.

As you can see, I’m still catching up on all the things I’d like to write about, and I know a lot of people who were interested in this project had even less time and internet access than I did.

So if you heard things you’d like to blog about, my offer to do it here still stands:

* Comment on the articles.
* If you want to write your own articles, let me know and I’ll give you an author account.
* If you want to write but not deal with blog software. email me and I’ll post it, attributing it to you.

If you want to blog but not to be a guest on someone else’s blog, there are lots of places where you can set up your own blog without charge, and quite easily. The one I know and recommend is “wordpress.com”:http://www.wordpress.com. I don’t use it because I can’t put “Google Adsense”:http://www.google.com/adsense ads on it, but if you’re not interested in monetizing the blog, it seems to be at a pretty good spot on the flexibility/ease of use continuum. If you do that and have content relevant to BEMF 07, let me know and I’ll put a link to it here.

This was a group of a dozen young professional recorder players who played about two dozen renaissance recorders under the baton of Paul Leenhouts. I thought it was by far the most riveting all-recorder concert I’ve ever heard. Here are some high points:

* The improvisation on Boffons, where Andreas Böhlen walked out into the audience.
* The award for the single most startling chord on the concert, and maybe in the entire festival, goes to the one on the penultimate cadence of the Bach Choral ??Leit uns mit deiner rechten Hand??. I had been thinking that group (seetings of ??Vater unser in himmelreich??) was being very square and German compared to the dance music that had preceded it, and suddenly, it was unsquare and German. Of course the startling quality was possible only because of the impeccable tuning.
* The low quartet playing ??Triste España sin ventura??. Most of the concert had most players playing most of the time, using sizes from soprano or alto to the 10-foot subcontrabass. But this set alternated a low consort (with the top line on C-bass) with a high consort).

I found it inspiring, and I hope the people I play with did too, that the entire concert was performed without written music (except for the conductor). Tom Zajac remarked that that made his 10 minutes of onstage memorized music in the opera seem like child’s play. I’m told a group member said that the hardest part of this was remembering the order of pieces and which of the two dozen recorders you need to pick up.

h3. You too can play this music

We play this stuff all the time, but most of it has fairly good modern editions. The ones on this site are the “Dowland”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#4 group:
* “Lachrimae Antiquae”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/69.html
* “The Earle of Essex Galiard”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/86.html

Both of these will be in ??Lachrimæ, or Seaven Teares figured in seaven passionate pavanes??, to be published soon at the “laymusic lulu.com store”:http://stores.lulu.com/laymusic

h3. And you can see more of the recorders

The “Boston Recorder Society”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org will be hosting a special event for their friends and members on Saturday, June 23 from 2-3:30 PM in the Carr Organ Room of the “New England Conservatory”:http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu.

I didn’t go to either of these concerts, but here’s the “Boston Globe review”:http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/06/18/mozart_sonatas_sparkle_at_early_music_fest/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+A%26E+%2F+Music+-+CD+and+music+reviews%2C+news+and+clips
of the Mozart recital by Kristian Bezuidenhout and Petra Müllejans, and the Sequentia concert.

I did hear people in line for the 11 PM concert that night complaining about the absence of Benjamin Bagby; I agree that the Festival management should have announced it.

Please leave a comment if you want to discuss these concerts.

Here’s the “Boston Globe review”:http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/06/18/long_ago_and_far_away_for_young_and_old_alike/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+A%26E+%2F+Music+-+CD+and+music+reviews%2C+news+and+clips
of Saturday’s Festival Concerts.

This was the Purcell concert I was hoping for on Thursday night, and didn’t quite get then. My introduction to early music as something that could really sound different was hearing the Deller Consort do ??Come, come ye sons of art?? on the radio. I still sing some of those tunes to myself when I’m feeling particularly exhuberant (as I was after this concert).

Besides the florid and exuberant theater music, this concert also included some of the music written for the rich culture of 17th century amateur music. A setting for guitar and voice by Cesare Morelli and Samuel Pepys of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy was particularly illuminating.

h3. You too can play this music.

Everybody who plays with “my group”:htto://www.windband.html who was there wanted to sing the catch, ??Sir Walter enjoying his damsel one night??, so I woke up early on Sunday morning and “transcribed it”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/414.html.

There are other catches by “Purcell”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#44 on this site, and there will probably be even more in the future. Most of them are also in the “drinking songs book”:http://www.laymusic.org/drinking.html.

This is a stub; I’ll get to it by tomorrow, I hope.

Meanwhile, here’s the
“Boston Globe review”:http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/06/18/long_ago_and_far_away_for_young_and_old_alike/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+A%26E+%2F+Music+-+CD+and+music+reviews%2C+news+and+clips” of Saturday night’s concerts.

Leave a comment if you want to talk about this concert.

Back in December of 2005 E. Bradke wrote to a dance list:
> Speaking of short bows, I had a chance to try out a baroque bow.
> Fabulous for morris tunes – you can hit three strings at once if you
> try, and it’s light as a feather.

Off to the exhibition halls to look at baroque bows — quite a few bowmakers were exhibiting. They are nice — light, quick and agile; they definitely make you feel like you want to do more with the bowing arm.

Stopped at the table of Richard Rigall, who gave me an introduction to the features and differences of his various bows; explained the woods, weights, lengths and other options, then laid out a selection to try and handed me a violin upon which to assay them.

Unfortunately I read most of my baroque repertoire from sheet music and only vaguely remembered some of the solo works, so it was dance tunes that I played quietly. These bows seem ideal for Scottish strathspeys, quick and light on the snaps! Then on to a morris tune (Morris dance is old, right? Early music!) with lots of bow ornament, since that bow felt so lightning fast, when I noticed eyes in the hall looking behind me. It was Nutting Girl that was rolling off the strings, and a flute-maker adjacent had heard it and was doing the steps in the hall. Hang the subtlety, let the rosin fly and make the fiddle sing for the capers and chorus, as he danced round a table, while keeping mindful of the low ceiling and sprinkler heads.

Another vendor quipped “that’s the most life we’ve seen out of him all day!”
I would say that bow certainly passed the danceability test! Yes, could do three strings at a time, still had to roll it to get four.

BEMF opening Gala at French Library after the opera. We started an hour before the guests were to arrive, assisting the caterer by carrying baskets of food, bowls of sauces, arranging cookies and breads. An unexpected question: “Can you arrange flowers?” Not my specialty, but for a time I cut and positioned papyrus reeds, orchids and geraniums in vases to decorate the banquet tables.

Soon the curtain dropped at the opera and people started to arrive. And arrive, and arrive, until the rooms were near capacity. There were conversations in French to be heard along with other languages, not all of them familiar. Old friends met, new acquaintances made. Ample amity and enjoyment went on in all the rooms.

Tenor J_M_ who usually sports a fine beard was seen bare-chinned, the reason? “Can’t have a beard when you play a girl“, which he did in several different roles in Psyche.

More trays of food to carry up the stairs, cups and plates to collect and carry down the stairs, until the Librarie manager blinked the lights. Final cleanup, then a slow process of leaving, as the evening merriment continued in the vestibule, on the stair, and a milling throng on the sidewalk. It was at least an hour into the next day before home and rest.

It has been said that there are three kinds of people:
(1) Some people MAKE things happen,
(2) Some people WATCH things happen, and
(3) Some people say “WHAT HAPPENED?”!

In reverse order, yes, as significant an event as this is to us, there are those who have no idea that this festival is taking place in their town. It just does not grab the Press or other media like a Shriners’ convention or MacWorld.

In the second place there are the patrons and audiences who enjoy the performances and make it possible to pay the bills. Enjoy the festival, we try to make it a good experience for you.

Then, to make the festival happen, there are of course the artists — instrumentalists and vocalists and instrument makers, and the like. Add to this the staff who attend to management of all the details that keep things running smoothly. There are also the volunteers, that cadre of people who set aside time from their daily tasks to carry, check, fold, sell, guide and aid the staff and attendees in whatever way is needed. You will see us around, we are the people in the blue polo shirts.