Category: Cantabile

We have the new Dowland, Cease these False Sports.

Anne is not going to be there, so we may not have anyone who only
sings, so it might be a good time to do some of our instrumental
repertoire. There’s at least one Holborne that we haven’t done;
there’s all the Dowland Pavannes, there’s been a recent request for
Gabrielli…

In addition, several people who aren’t regulars are planning to
come, so if they all actually make it, we’ll be able to do five and
six part stuff. Requests are welcome.

We don’t yet have a date for the Wort Processors Ciderfest, but it
will likely be in late October. I’m thinking about the sheep group,
so we may run some of those (Fair Phyllis, Burst forth my tears…).

We had a local maximum for recent years of 10 people attending. So
we were able to do some 5-part stuff with both 4-foot and 8-foot
choirs.

We did:

• Farmer, Fair Phyllis
• Holborne group:
  • Hermoza
  • Muy Linda
  • Fairie Round
• Rameau, Avec du vin, endormons nous
• Drinking songs:
  • Let us drink and be merry
  • He that drinks is immortal

I don’t know of any upcoming events to disrupt our normal weekly
schedule for the next few weeks. When we have a date for the
ciderfest, we’ll probably schedule a few meetings to prepare for that,
some of which will be open only to people who want to play there.

Other events

Judith Conrad is playing a clavichord concert on Sunday. Details
on the
BRS calendar.

We did:

• Amy Suffrez que je vous aime
  • 2-part version
  • 3-part version
• Innsbruck (both settings)
• Dowland group
  • Daphne was not so chaste
  • What if I never Speede
  • By a fountain where I lay
  • What poore Astronomers are they

We didn’t do the 5-part new Dowland because there were only 4 of
us. So we have that for next week, and there are a couple more from
book 3 that I want to check for range.

Other events

Those for whom the beer drinking part of the Renaissance Band experience is of
interest might want to drop in at the Boston Wort Processors
annual Pub Crawl on Saturday, August 20.

The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band is tomorrow,
Tuesday, August 16 at 7:45 at my place.

We’ll have a a new Dowland (although there are lots of things
interfering with my getting to it). It will be the last of the
“Pilgrim’s Solace” ones. I may or may not get the lute part
transcribed in time. This one has an instrumental bass accompaniment
so it isn’t as critical as with the previous two which had solos which
were unaccompanied except for the lute. If it’s me doing bass, you’re
better off with me playing a part on the serpent than floundering on
the keyboard. A keyboard player committing to coming will increase
the probably of the transcription happining.

I’ll also try to get a new dance set transcribed, but if not, we’ll
do an old dance set. Requests are welcome.

The big news of the week is that I’m rearranging the unwieldy
individual notebooks into unwieldy group notebooks. This means that
only I have to figure out where to find the music, and nobody has to
figure out how to balance the large notebooks on their music stands.
This will mean that it’s practical to finalize the Dowland Book 3
typesetting. I’m also noticing a lot of good music in the notebooks
that we haven’t done for a while, so we might dig out some old
favorites.

The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band is tomorrow,
August 9, at 7:45 at my place.

The next Dowland is an Epithalamion, invoking Hymen and Black Night
and the turtles. It’s a bit like the last one, with an extended solo
(for alto this time) with only lute accompaniment, so I will attempt
to transcribe the lute part again. The chorus is 5 parts, but pretty
homophonic, so it shouldn’t be hard.

I’ve fixed the error in the cantus part from last week, so we might do
that one again, too.

I may or may not get to the next dance set. I also have an
Elizabethan waste of youth song from a lilypond-using friend that
looks like it would be fun to try.

Otherwise, requests are welcome.

We did:

• Gervaise, Huict Bransle de Poictou
• Dowland
  • Up merry mates
  • Welcome Black Night
• Il Bianco e dolce Cigno
  • Arcadelt
  • Vecchi
• Let us drink and be merry

I don’t know of any schedule anomalies, so plan for next week to
finish the Dowland “Pilgrim’s Solace”. The last piece is a companion
piece to the one we did last night.

We did:

• Huict Bransles de Poictou
• Drinking songs
  • Slaves are they that heap up mountains
  • Vive la serpe
  • To Anacreon in heaven
• Dowland, “Up, merry Mates”
• Arcadelt “Il bianco e dolce cigno”
• Gibbons “The Silver Swan”

Having a keyboard player on the lute part seemed to add a lot, so
I’ll try to get better at transcribing and proofreading them.

I don’t know of any reason why we can’t meet regularly for the next
few Tuesdays.

The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band will be tomorrow,
Tuesday, August 2, at 7:45 PM at my place.

We will have a new Dowland, “Up merry mates”, which is clearly a
tune for a mask where a ship rolled onto the stage with a male chorus
singing this song.

It’s possible but not likely that we’ll have a keyboard
transcription of the Dowland lute part, which would be good because there’s an
extended tenor solo with no other accompaniment. But entering lute
transcriptions is tedious, and proofreading them is both tedious and
error-prone, and I only have 4 measures entered so far.

We will probably have a new set of Bransles. (This is over half
entered, and dance music with no words goes pretty fast.)

Otherwise, we’ll take requests, but I’d like to continue with the
drinking songs we’re trying to solidify, and if there are enough
people, the Vecchi “Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno”.

Publishing news

The Dowland project is winding down — we have two more songs from
Pilgrims’ Solace and 3 or four that are in “A Musical Banquet”.
There’s still lots of “Lacrimae” to transcribe, but lately that
hasn’t been suitable for the people showing up.

I have an offer from someone in New Zealand whose group uses my
stuff to help with converting the lilypond source to the latest
version of lilypond. So if you have strong feelings about
typesetting, you might want to read my discussion of why and why not
to do this in the publishing
blog.

And if you have opinions about a Renaissance composer you’d
like to do more of, let me know so that we can start acquiring music
to work on when we’ve finished doing a new Dowland every week.

Meeting information

Since putting the blog up, I haven’t been sending information about
our meetings every week to the entire list. I do send it to the
people who show up regularly, and I post it to the blog. And July was
unusual in having
two Tuesdays where we didn’t meet — in general it’s
pretty safe to just show up on Tuesday. But feel free to call or
email if you’re not sure whether to come or not.

We did:

• Gervaise, Dix bransles Gays
• Susato, Rondes, plus a few more
• Drinking songs
  • Vive la Serpe
  • Slaves are they that heap up mountains
  • Cakes and ale
• Dowland
  • Come, heavy sleep
  • Come again
  • Now, o now

Remember that we don’t meet on July 26, and everybody should go to
the West Gallery Quire
workshop with Francis Roads in Newton instead. So our next meeting is
August 2 at the usual time and place.

We’ll be meeting at the usual time (7:45) and place on Tuesday,
July 19.

Remember that on Tuesday, July 26, we will not be meeting, since a
number of us want to go to the West Gallery Workshop with Francis
Rhodes.

We’ll have a new Dowland, “Up merry mates”, and a new set of
Gervaise Bransles Gays. It’s also the day we sing all the
verses to “La Marseillaise”.

Aside from that, we take requests, and adjust
the repertoire to be suitable for whoever shows up.