Category: Cantabile

We played:

• Sermisy, Auprès de vous
• Je suis d’Allemagne
• Dietrich, Tota pulchra es
• Purcell, Five reasons

We will meet on Tuesday, November 30, at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you are coming.

The building permit came through on Wednesday. In theory, this means I’ll get my house back in a few months. In practice, I’m expecting there to be more bottlenecks, but maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised this time.

We played:

• Henry VIII,Pasttime with good company
• Holborne: The Honei-Suckle; The Marie-Golde
• Morley: Now is the month of Maying
• Dowland: Clear or cloudy, A shepherd in a shade
• Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce Cigno
• Sumer is icumin in

We will be meeting on Tuesday, November 23 at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you are coming.

We had proposed doing some of our less complicated polyphony as a sing-along session at NEFFA if it was in person, but nobody had said they were interested in doing it as an online session. NEFFA has now decided that they will be online only in April of 2022, so we are no longer thinking about that.

We played:

• Campian, Never weather-beaten saile
• Morley: Whither away so fast
• Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce Cigno
• Dietrich, Tota pulchra es
• Dowland: Fine knacks for ladies
• Estocart, Psaume CXXXVII
• Purcell, Cakes and Ale

Thanks to Sarah Mead for help on the transcription of Tota pulchra es.

We will be meeting Tuesday at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you are coming.

I was ensuring a free and fair election in Cambridge’s Ward 10, precinct 3, so I didn’t get there until people were putting their instruments away, but I’m told that we played:

• Senfl: Im Meyen
• Dowland, Clear or cloudy
• Lassus, In me transierunt irae tuae
• Morley: Now is the month of Maying
• Isaac, Innsbruck
• Ravenscroft: Now God be with old Simeon

The meeting on Tuesday, November 9, will be at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you are coming.

There was no meeting. Nobody who had to drive more than three miles wanted to come.

Next week, November 2 is election day. I will be working at the polls, and can’t get there before 9 or so. Anne has offered to run the rehearsal until I get there if there’s a quorum. So if you want to come, let me, Anne, Wendy and Richard know. If enough people want to come, it will be at Wendy and Richard’s home in Arlington Center at 7:45 pm.

We played:

• Morley: It was a lover and his lass; Blow, shepherds, blow
• Lassus, In me transierunt irae tuae
• Holborne: The Honei-Suckle; The Marie-Golde; The night watch
• Wise, Judith and Holofernes

We will meet next Tuesday, October 26, at 7:45 pm at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you are coming.

We played:

• Ravenscroft, Of all the birds
• Morley, Deep Lamenting
• Rhau, Dulces Exuviae
• Wise, Judith and Holofernes

We will meet on Tuesday, October 19, at 7:45 at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you’re coming.

I did put in the application for a NEFFA event. We’re applying for an in-person event, so we should know January 1 whether that will be possible for anyone, and should be told fairly soon thereafter whether our application has been accepted.

I have uploaded a page about the application, which contains a potential list of songs, a link to the information I submitted for the application, and will eventually have links to the booklet, list of performers, etc.

We played:

• Ravenscroft: We be three poor Mariners, Now God be with old Simeon
• Morley, Love learns by laughing
• Gibbons, For Deliverance from a public Sickness
• Obrecht, Tsat een meskin
• Isaac, Innsbruck

The Tuesday, October 12, meeting will be at the home of Wendy Goble and Richard Schmeidler in Arlington Center at 7:45 pm. Please let me, Wendy, and Richard know if you are planning to come.

The idea is to give a session where the audience is invited to sing simple polyphony that was written to be sung in social settings. We’ll use our favorites from the Ravenscroft presentation we gave in 2011, and also add rounds and part songs from the rest of our repertoire, including the two songs about the plague that we’ve added this year.

I was thinking of something like Folk Polyphony: from the Tudors to the Georgians or Folk Polyphony: From Court to Catch Club. Discussing it with Richard Schmeidler, I gave Pasttime with good company as an example of what we’re going to sing, and he suggested that would be a good title.

The thirteen page booklet we gave out in 2011 turned out to be a little short – I think we ended up repeating some favorites after we’d sung it all. Not that that’s a bad thing, but I think we can remove only a few things and add a bunch more for this year.

It looks like we already removed a few things when we redid the book for the Walk for Hunger in 2013. I would say we could remove a couple more rounds (e.g. Oaken Leaves and Jolly Shepherd), but I really like all three of those part songs.

So here’s the proposed list:

• Pasttime with good company
• It was a lover and his lass
• Campian: When Laura Smiles, Never weather-beaten saile, Now winter nights enlarge, I care not for these ladies
• Ravenscroft from previous book
• Gibbons, For Deliverance from a public Sickness
• Wise: Judith and Holofernes, When the plague was in town
• Five reasons
• Let us drink and be merry

I welcome suggestions for both deletions and additions.

Past time with good company

The Cantabile Renaissance Band plays and sings the music that was sung in social settings in the sixteenth century (and thereabouts). This session will invite the audience to participate in rounds and simple part songs. The repertoire will be in English and not require counting after the first entrance. Music will be supplied. It will come from sources like the book of songs Henry VIII used for singing at feasts, the books of music that Thomas Ravenscroft collected for home use, the rounds used by the catch clubs in 17th century London, and songs about the plague of London in 1665.

The audience will participate in rounds and simple part songs. Music will be supplied. We will sing about eating, drinking, love, birds, death, and “Publick Sickness”, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Here’s what I put in my application. At some point they might tell me where I can see and edit the description and membership of the group.