Category: Cantabile

Some decisions we made:

• Clear or Cloudy isn’t ready for public performance. We will work
  harder on it next month, and I will try to get better underlay.
• Anne’s voice works fine as an instrument in an instrumental
  setting.
• The serpent isn’t ready to play 15 minute performances in settings
  where there’s no warmup time.

Route

Let me know if I have any of this wrong.

1. April is in my Mistress’ Face
   • Instrumental: Bruce and Laura, T recorder, Ishmael, Fiddle,
     Bonnie, viol.
   • Vocal: Bonnie and Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce
2. The Silver Swan
   • 4-foot instrumental: Laura, Bruce, Ishmael, Anne, Bonnie
   • vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie (viol)
   • 8-foot instrumental: Laura, Anne, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie
3. Me, Me and None but Me
   • Instrumental: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce (trombone)
   • Vocal (2 verses): Bonnie and Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce
4. Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno (Arcadelt)
   • Big instruments: Bruce, Laura, Ishmael, Bonnie
   • Vocal: Anne and Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce
   • Recorders: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce

Transcription error

We discovered an error in the Tenor line of the Eb version of “The
Silver Swan”. The words “death ap-” in the second phrase should be
eighth notes not quarter notes. I will fix this all the places I
can. I think the 2004 book isn’t fixable, so if you print it out
again, do it from the
laymusic.org site.

We’ll be at John’s place (310 1/2 Pearl St. in Cambridge) starting at 8
PM. 310 1/2 is behind 308, down a long driveway. They don’t enforce
the permit only parking there in the evening, so there shouldn’t be a
problem parking on the street. Let me know if you need more
directions than that. His phone number is (617) 661-3353.

We’re expecting Anne (voice), Bonnie (voice, recorder, bass viol),
Laura (voice, recorder, serpent), Ishmael (voice, recorder, fiddle),
Bruce (voice, recorder, trombone), and Stuart (cello).
If this list is wrong in any respect, please let me know. Also let me
know if you need me to bring any music.

I’ve given all the part assignments top voice to bottom voice.

We’ll be working on the playlist for the April 2 gig, which is a
subset of the playlist of the May 1 gig, so people from both gigs are
coming. We will probably do only two or three pieces, and work on
them pretty intensely.

There’s a problem practicing for the April gig, because we have two
five-part pieces, and only 5 people playing, one of whom doesn’t play
an instrument, so we may decide not to do our usual instrumental then
vocal route for those pieces.

April is in my mistress’ face

April part assignments: instrumental: Bruce, Laura, Ishmael,
Bonnie.

Vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bonnie and Bruce.

Stuart will probably be playing bass in May, but it might make sense for him
to also learn the tenor, so maybe he should play tenor this week.

Clear or Cloudy

April part assignments: Anne, Bonnie, Ishmael, Bruce, Laura. We will
fiddle with whether there’s an instrumental that makes sense at the
March 29 meeting. Stuart should play bass, and that way we can also
do the May configuration where Bonnie and Anne will both be on the top
line, and Laura will be on Altus.

Quintus is between Altus and Tenor in this piece.

Silver Swan

Make sure you have the version in Eb (three flats in the
signature).

April part assignments: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie.
Again, we’ll fiddle with an April instrumental version on March 29,
Stuart will play bass so Bonnie and Anne can both sing top line.

Quintus is between Cantus and Altus in this piece.

Me, me and none but me

April part assignments: Instrumental: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael,
Bruce. Vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce. I’d like to see if this
works a capella, in which case Bonnie can sing top line with
Anne, and we can do the instrumental completely on recorders, since
it’s a recorder society gig. If not, Bonnie will play viol with Bruce
on the vocal, and probably also on the instrumental version, in which
case Bruce will play top line in the instrumental.

In any case, Stuart will play bass except when we’re experimenting
with what we can do without him.

Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno

Same assignments as Me, me and none but me.

It was good to play for an experienced pair of ears like John’s.
We worked on establishing a tuning routine for the strings, and on
having the instrumentalists as well as the singers be more sensitive
to the words, and on having everybody be more aware that they’re
telling a story.

We played:

• Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno
• Morley, April is in my mistress’ face
• Dowland, Me, me and none but me
• Dowland, Clear or cloudy

Future plans

We still haven’t completely settled the orchestration for the April
performance. If Barney can make it to the March 22 rehearsal to stand
in for Bruce (I know he doesn’t play trombone, but he sings in the same
range and can play the recorder parts), we should be able to decide
that, and then work intensely on that program on March 29.

Corrections to the music

We found two errors in the printed music.

1. The Bassus in April is
   in my mistress’ face has an F in the wrong octave in measure 25, and
   should be either corrected by hand or
   printed from www.laymusic.org.
2. The Cantus part in “Me, me and none but me” has two eighth notes
   in measure 20 that are a step up from where they should be. This
   should be printed from laymusic.org.

We will be meeting tonight, Tuesday, March 8, at the usual time and
place.

Performing

We have to decide both what we’re playing on April 2 and what we want
to work on with John Tyson next week.

I know Barney said he couldn’t make it on March 15, but he’s also
not playing April 2, so that’s OK. I’ll be having a lesson with John
on Thursday, and talking to him then about what we want to work on, so
if any of Anne, Bonnie, Bruce, Ishmael, and Stuart can’t make it on
the 15th, I’l like to know by the 10th.

I’ve been saying that it will be either drinking songs or river music,
because April 2 is too early for May music. But lately I’ve been
thinking that there are two April songs on the May music program, both
of which are based on the same Italian poem. So my current thinking
is we do those, and either two “Silver Swan”s or two “Rivers of
Babylon”s.

So:

• April is in my mistress’ face
• Clear or cloudy

And either:

• The Silver Swan
• Arcadelt, Il blanco e doce Cigno

Or:

• Estans Assis
• Campian or Billings

Right now I’m leaning towards the Swans, on the grounds that it’s a
recorder society event, and the Billings isn’t really a recorder
piece.

So I want to run all of the above tonight, as well as the Vecchi
“Il bianco e dolce Cigno”.

New Music

We didn’t run the three-part Dowland I transcribed last week. It may
take more time that we have, but if not, it would be good to not leave
it on the spindle for too long.

John and I have been doing a couple of settings of “Adieu mes amours”,
and if I get around to transcribing the one from the Odhecaton, we
might do those.

If the weather leaves us with only three parts, we have a bunch more
French stuff to read through, or we can struggle through the Dowland 3
part things again. And of course run the French drinking songs.

If it’s only two parts, some of us will be getting good at Morley or
Lassus or someone.

Future directions

We have another deadline we should be considering, which is that the
Boston Early Music Festival is happening in June. The last two
festivals have been fairly fertile recruiting grounds for us, so we
should think about what direction we want the group to move in, since
that will affect how we want to advertise it.

Currently, the group is serving several functions:

1. A place to sightread a lot of music that nobody hears or plays
   very much.
2. A performing group.
3. A place where people who are learning a new instrument can play it
   with others.
4. A place for people to play and occasionally perform that doesn’t
   require a weekly commitment.

(1) has been fairly consistent over the years; (2) is more
important now than it was two or four years ago, and (3) is losing
importance, although it was uppermost in my mind when I formed the
group, and is still emphasized in the website description.

(2) and (3) are pretty incompatible; (1) is actually an asset for
(2) although of course it takes up time we don’t have in the heat of
performance preparation. (4) is also incompatible with (2).

So I think the real thing we have to decide is do we want to emphasize
the performing, in which case we would probably want to recruit only
other people who are interested in performing, and would want to
reduce the drop-in component, and the encouraging beginners on new
instruments.

As you may have noticed, the rehearsal schedule for the upcoming
performances is a weekly schedule, although I’m not expecting everyone
to come every week. I’m considering reducing the drop-in component to
the group by saying that it meets every week, and possibly designating
one or two meetings a month as particularly suitable for new members
to come.

So we’ll talk about some of this tonight, and if you can’t make it
tonight but have opinions, please let me know.

It was yet another “Wow, we had 4 people” meeting on a dark and stormy
night. Everybody had either walked and had ice blown into their faces
by the blizzard-force winds or driven and had to chip their cars out
of several inches of ice.

We decided that the April 2 performance would be a combination of the
April music and the Swan music. So it will be a subset of:

• Morley, April is in my Mistress Face
• Dowland, “Clear or
  Cloudy” This one is also in the
  2004 book with the Tenor A section printed with the Quintus B section.
• Gibbons, Silver Swan
• Dowland, “Me, me and none but me”
• Arcadelt “Il bianco e dolce cigno”

I will do timings, and we may decide at the last minute to do more
verses of the better-sounding ones rather than fewer verses of the
ones that don’t sound so good. Surprisingly, last night “April is in
my Mistress’ face was in the latter category, so I may ask Lisa to let
me know if anyone else is doing that one. Although the last I heard,
we may be the only group with more than 3 players.

That list is what we’ll be doing with John Tyson on March 15, so
please let me know if you aren’t able to print them all, so that I can
have enough copies.

If the weather improves enough that we start being able to work on
five-voice pieces, we may add the Vecchi “Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno” for
the May performance, but I think it’s too late to do it in April.

So here’s what we did:

1. Bicinia, several Fantasias
2. Bastienne, Bastienne, vous avés changé d’amis
3. April is in my Mistress’ face
4. Me, me and none but me
5. Arcadelt, Il Bianco e dolce Cigno
6. Clear or Cloudy
7. Josquin, Adieu mes amours
8. Mouton, Adieu mes amours, double canon
9. Quand je bois

I think “Adieu mes amours” will work well as part of a set about
having no money, with “Quand je bois”.

Personnel

Here’s who I think is playing with us:

On April 2:

• Laura
• Anne
• Bruce
• Bonnie
• Ishmael

At the Walk for Hunger on May 1:

• Laura
• Barney
• Patricia
• Anne
• Bonnie
• Stuart
• Ishmael
• Paul

If I’m missing anyone, or including anyone erroneously, let me know as
soon as possible.

Dates to save

• March 8, only for people playing one of the gigs who can make it
  easily.
• March 15. We’ll be meeting with John Tyson and concentrating on
  the April 2 music. This meeting may take place at John’s place,
  details later.
• March 22, only for people playing one of the gigs who can make it
  easily.
• March 29 (this will be limited to and compulsory for the
  people playing the April 2 gig.)
• Saturday, April 2, 2-4 PM, Central Square Library. We will be
  playing for 15 minutes, either the river music or the drinking songs
  set.
• April 5, only for people doing the Walk for Hunger who can make it
  easily.
• April 12, only for people doing the Walk for Hunger who can make it
  easily.
• April 19, with John Tyson, again. We’ll be able to discuss the
  April 2 performance, and do some of the stuff for the Walk for Hunger.
• April 26 (limited to and compulsory for the people doing
  the Walk for Hunger.) Stuart (I think) told me he was mostly
  concerned about Roaring Jelly rehearsals before NEFFA, and didn’t mind
  missing this one.
• Sunday, May 1, Walk for Hunger. I haven’t set the schedule, but
  it’s likely that it will be like last year, where we play the same 45
  minute program twice, with someone else playing a set in
  between ours, ending at about 3 PM. So plan on 12:30 to 3:00,
  and coming to the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse afterwards.

If you’re on the list of people who are playing, and you can’t make
the compulsory rehearsals, please let me know.

The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band will be on March 1,
2005, at 7:45 PM, at my place.

We’re going to run a few doubtful pieces from the setlist.

Then we’ll work pretty hard on the River music set for the April 2
BRS performance.

I’ve started typesetting the next Dowland, Lasso vita mia, but I
think it might make sense to get back to new Dowlands after the Walk
for Hunger. But if there’s demand for sightreading difficult music
instead of just working on what we’re going to be performing, I will
finish it and we’ll do it. I didn’t feel that we got that much out of
the new Dowland we did last time, though.

Between 10 inches and snow and a contra dance at MIT, this was another
low-attendance rehearsal.

• Phalese Bicinia:
  • O Maria, mater pia
  • Per illud ave prolatum
  • Qui sequitur me
  • Sancti mei
  • Fulgebunt justi
  • Sicut rosa
• Campian, My love hath vowed he will forsake me
• Dowland two-part songs from Second Book:
  • Flow my tears
  • Sorrow, sorrow stay
  • Dye not before they day
  • Mourne, mourne
• I gave her cakes and I gave her ale

Performing notes

On the Campian, “My love hath vowed he will forsake me” we decided
that we will sing 4 verses, with solos on the A sections of 1-3.
Everyone not playing the bass will sing all B sections, and the A
section of verse 4. The bass part isn’t idiomatic for serpent, so it
will be played by cello and/or viol.

Here they are with pointers to the music.

If there’s any demand, I’ll do a booklet as I’ve done in previous
years, once the sets are a little more cast in concrete. So let me
know whether that would be helpful.

River set

• Billings, By the rivers of Watertown regular
  parts in original key.. Also transposed down a step, and the bass solo cued in the
  other parts in the
  2004 book, and with larger type but in the original key from the
  2003 book. Please use the version
  transposed down a step.
• Estans
  assis, aux rives aquatiques Please make
  sure you have the most recent version, with letters A through F on all
  parts.
• Gibbons, Silver
  Swan A problem with the tenor part was
  fixed on March 30; please download again if you printed it before that.
• Dowland, “Me, me and none but me”
• Arcadelt “Il bianco e dolce cigno”
• Possibly the 5-part “Il
  bianco e dolce cigno”. This is contingent on being able to learn
  it, which seems dubious to me since it’s been a while since we had a
  rehearsal with enough people to cover the parts, and it doesn’t look
  like this Tuesday will be an exception. Dropped for the May performance; we will get back to
  learning it after that.
• Possibly other “Rivers of Babylon settings”. I particularly like
  the one we sing in West Gallery to the Walter Scott “Dies Irae”
  translation, which was originally published to a Thomas Campian
  “Babylon
  Streams” We will probably do an
  instrumental and the first two verses of the vocal in May.

May set

• Morley, Now is the Month of Maying
• Morley, April is
  in my Mistress Face We may drop this for May.
• Dowland, “Clear or
  Cloudy”. This one is also in the
  2004 book with the Tenor A section printed with the Quintus B section.
• Maybe Campian, “My love
  hath vowd hee will forsake mee” At March 1
  rehearsal, we decided that we will sing 4 verses, with solos on the A
  sections of 1-3. Everyone not playing the bass will sing all B
  sections, and the A section of verse 4. The bass part isn’t idiomatic
  for serpent, so it will be played by cello and/or viol.
• Morley “God
  Morrow, fair ladies of the May”
  This may be hard to learn in the time we have available, so a subset
  of the group may do it.
  The link I gave was to the original key; if we
  do it we’ll do it a third down, so use it from serpent.laymusic.org
  for now.

Drinking Songs

These are all in the
drinking songs book.
We’ll be selecting a 15 minute set for the Walk for Hunger, and
possibly also doing it at the BRS performance on April 2.

• Rounds
  • He that will an Alehouse keep
  • Let us drink and be merry
  • 5 reasons
  • He that drinks is immortal
  • Tis Women
  • I gave her cakes and I gave her ale
  • Slaves are they that heap up mountains
• To Anacreon in Heaven
• Quant je boy du vin claret tout tourne
• Vignon, Vignon
• Changeons propos
• Vive la serpe Make sure you have the
  version with one sharp.

I have ommitted several rounds that we could pretty easily work up,
so if anyone’s favorites aren’t here, let me know and I’ll add them.

I think at any particular performance, we wouldn’t do all of those,
but it’s good to have that many available.