Original article posted Thursday, March 10, after the final class
before the concert.
It’s close to the same group as the December
concert, except that we also have Heather Fearn, who is a good
recorder player.
The rate of re-enlistment was high partly because that was an unusually
good concert. I’m not sure people are quite as interested in the music
on this one, but the general level of playing will probably be even
better.
The big reason for this is the tenor viol problem. The regulars
in the group for several years had included Barney Frazier, who plays
recorders, bass dulcian, and tenor viol. Hope Ehn, the director,
plays bass viol. So after Bonnie Rogers
joined the group bringing her treble viol, there was almost a viol
consort of treble, tenor, and bass viols, so it was pretty easy to
program viol consort music and fill in the rest of the parts with
recorders and serpent.
Unfortunately, Barney has some health problems, and isn’t in the
group any more. So for the last couple of terms, Hope’s been trying
to use the tenor serpent and the cornetto to take its place, and it
hasn’t really worked. I don’t think we should give up on the tenor
serpent forever (see Irish
tenor serpent), but it’s really more of a baritone serpent the way
I play it at the moment, and in any case, it needs vocal lines to
sound good, and a viol doesn’t.
This term, she’s using her bass viol, and to a lesser extent a
tenor crumhorn and low recorders to do the tenor viol parts. The two
cornetto pieces are quite suitable for a beginning cornetto player,
and will sound pretty good, and the serpent parts are all normal bass
serpent parts, and will also sound good.
Because it’s a really good vocal and recorder ensemble, there’s a
lot less solo singing and recorder playing, which means I haven’t
really been practicing that stuff as intensely as in other terms. But
I’m expecting it to be a pretty good program that people will enjoy
listening to.
I have been practicing:
- Both cornetto pieces. Stingo is just a little fast, and has a Bb
I have to be careful about. The Altenberg cantus firmus is just
gorgeous, and is a great segue in my practicing between doing long
tones and playing pieces. I’m working on dynamics and shaping
phrases. - The Scheidt galliard, which has dueling top lines with written out
ornamentation which at anything like a galliard speed is fast for any
of the recorder players in the class. I’ve been pushing for playing
it at something like galliard speed and leaving out notes, which I
have figured out how to do. I’d also be perfectly happy to play it at
the speed we can play all the notes and call it something instead of a
Galliard — it sounds like a perfectly good formal, stately intrada
that way. But this suggestion has fallen on deaf ears.
This week I should practice:
- The Stingo vocal. I still stumble on the words occasionally.
Then if I get them by heart, I could practice singing it standing in
front of a mirror and doing barmaid gestures. - The Monteverdi recorder part. I should work on doing some
cadential ornaments in time. - The Ferrabosco Four Notes Pavan. The serpent part isn’t hard, but
playing it soft enough to hear the top line is at the edge of what my
lip can manage. And there are some tricky rhythms that could use a
workout with a metronome.
The things on the program I’m really looking forward to are:
- The opening piece, Nun fanget an.
- Niña y viña, a 16th century Spanish thing that pretty much sings
itself. - Rossi, Adon Olam, where the serpent gets to sing with a good bass
singer for almost the first time outside of the West Gallery Quire. - Billings “Wake Every Breath”, where the whole room suddenly bursts
into song.
LayMusic.org 