Category: Cantabile

We played:

• Campian, Though your strangeness frets my heart
• Charlton, Suite on French Folk Tunes
• Morley, Farewell, Disdainful
• Gizeghem, De tous biens plaine
• Cavendish, Come, gentle swains
• Weelkes, Hark, all ye lovely saints above
• What a queer bird the frog are
• Purcell, Cakes and Ale

Schedule

We have been invited to play again for the Walk for hunger. I’ve been informally assured that we’ll have our usual place and time. The Walk is on Sunday, May 4, and we usually fill the time (alternating with another group) between 10 AM and 3 PM.

For those of you who haven’t done this before, this means that sometime in March we will stop having dropin meetings and start having regular rehearsals. For a dropin meeting, you expect the leader to provide the music, and you don’t worry if you end up coming late, or needing to borrow instruments, or even end up not showing up at all. For a real rehearsal, you show up on time (or rather, early enough to do setup and tuning before the official start time), with your music in an order where you can find things easily, and with the instruments you expect to play in performance. If you turn out not to be able to come, you let the director know as much in advance as possible.

I’d like to know who wants to play by early March. There are 5 Tuesdays in April, so we may not need more than one or two March Tuesdays to be real rehearsals. But please don’t sign up to play if you aren’t going to be able to make most of the rehearsals in late March and April.

I will attempt to have a fairly firm playlist by early March. Of course, it’s hard to make a real playlist until I know who’s playing, but I understand that the playlist may influence how much you want to play. So discuss probabilities with me if you have issues.

Until the end of March, I expect that we will have our regularly scheduled dropin meetings every Tuesday at 7:45 PM at my place.

We played:

• Sermisy, Aupres de vous (2 voices)
• Sermisy, Aupres de vous (3 voices)
• Morley, Canzonets for 3 voices:
  • God morrow, fair ladies of the May
  • Whether away so fast
• Campian, Never weather-beaten saile
• Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce Cigno
• Vecchi, Il bianco e dolce Cigno
• Isaac, Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen
• Harrison, Give me the sweet delights of love

Schedule

Regular dropin meetings will continue for the forseeable future on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place.

We played:

• Campian, Though your strangeness frets my heart
• Johnson, Full Fathom Five thy father lies
• Heurteur, Quand je bois du vin claret
• Ravenscroft, He that would an alehouse keep
• Isaac, Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen

Schedule

I’m home now, so we’ll resume our regularly scheduled dropin meetings next week, Tuesday, January 22, at 7:45 PM at my place.

The Walk for Hunger is closer than you think. (May 4). If there’s anything you especially want to learn for that performance, we should be starting to play it regularly, so let me know.

We mostly played pieces from the Christmas party book, and Bruce’s West Gallery Christmas handout. We did also do a new round, Give me the sweet delights of love.

It sounds like there won’t be a meeting next week, January 8. Tobi Hoffman invites everybody to come play with her group in Framingham.

The following week, January 15, Stuart Solloway has offered to host if I’m not yet able to. He will be emailing the list with information.

.

I hope everybody is having a good holiday season.

If you want to listen to some live music tomorrow, Thursday,
December 27, you should come hear me, Ishmael, and Norm Nichols
play at the Boston Public Library. Here’s the program.

We’re also going to play and sing some more holiday related
music on January 1 at the regular dropin meeting at my place.

I hope to see you at either or both of these events.

I apologize for the late notice, but we’re going to have to rehearse
for the December 27 performance tomorrow night, and will not be able
to have our usual dropin rehearsal.

We had to add a new person only yesterday to replace Bonnie, and we
really need the time to redo the arrangements and figure out the new
playlist.

So I hope to see you all at the party, this Sunday, December 16, from
4 PM on, and also at the regular dropin meeting on January 1, at the
usual time (7:45 PM) and place
.

We played:

• Weelkes:
  • As Deadly Serpents lurking
  • Four arms, two necks, one wreathing
  • O now weep now sing
  • Come, Sirrah Jack, ho
  • My dearest friend is dead (On the death of Thomas Morley)
• Rounds:
  • Slaves are they that heap up mountains
  • To Portsmouth

Schedule

• Dec. 11, Regular dropin meeting, 7:45 PM at my place.
• December 16, 4 PM, party.
• Tuesday December 18, no dropin meeting
• Tuesday, December 25, Christmas, no meeting
• Tuesday, January 1, regular dropin meeting

After that, stay tuned for more medical bulletins.

We played:

• Weelkes:
  • O now weep now sing
  • Four arms, two necks, one wreathing
  • Come, Sirrah Jack, ho
• Byrd:
  • I have been young
  • Lord in thy rage rebuke me not
  • Come to me grief forever
• Rounds:
  • Slaves are they
  • Fie, nay prithee John
  • To Portsmouth

Schedule

• December 4, regular dropin meeting
• December 11, regular dropin meeting
• Sunday, December 16, 4 PM, party
• January 1, regular dropin meeting

We’ll discuss whether someone else is interested in hosting meetings in January while I’m not at home.

Other events

The December 8 Boston Recorder Society concert, Songs in the Ground, with Clea Galhano, should be worth hearing. If you want to work more with Clea, you can go to the December 9 meeting.

Three members of the Cantabile Renaissance Band, (Laura, Ishmael, and Bonnie) will be performing a program called To Drive the Cold Winter away: Party music from Renaissance England at the Boston Public Library on December 27 at 2 PM.

We played:

• Weelkes:
  • Four arms, two necks, one wreathing
  • The Ape, the Monkey and Baboon
  • O now weep, now sing
  • As deadly serpents lurking
  • Robin Hood
  • Come, sirrah Jack, ho!
  • Hark, all ye lovely saints above
• Cavendish, Come, Gentle Swains
• Gibbons, This is our life
• Rounds:
  • To Portsmouth
  • Cakes and Ale
  • Little Jack Horner
  • Dona Nobis Pacem

Schedule

We had two votes for having the party on December 16, and one for December 15, and I slightly prefer the sixteenth, so that’s when it will be. I’ll get a hardcopy invitation out by next week, but it will start at 4 and go until it ends.

We’ll have regular dropin rehearsals on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place on November 27, December 4, and December 11. We will not meet on Tuesday, December 18, nor on Christmas Day, December 25.

I would actually like to meet on New Year’s Day, if anyone wants to come. I’ll be having hip replacement surgery on January 4, so we might have to miss some rehearsals (or have somebody else host them) in January.

We played:

• Certon, Contentez vous (two voice version)
• Susato, Dans de Hercules//De Matrigale
• Sermisy, Contentez vous
• Anonymous, Entre vous qui aymé
• Cavendish, Come, gentle swains
• Weelkes, Hark, all you lovely saints above
• Gibbons, What is our life?
• Cider Round

Schedule

Our regular dropin meetings will continue on Tuesdays at 7:45
PM at my
place.

It’s probably time to start scheduling the party. I’ll be leaving town on December 23, so while the 22nd would be possible, I’m not really thrilled about not having a day to clean up before packing to go. So that means we have to schedule it on the 15th or 16th. Which is what everybody else with a December event will be doing, too.

So if you want to come to the party, let me know which of those days is impossible for you, and which is preferable if they’re both possible. We’re talking about a party that starts in the late afternoon and goes until everybody leaves, so it’s possible to combine it with a concert that isn’t too far away.