Blogging from the BEMF

The “Boston Early Music Festival”:http://www.bemf.org will be happening from June 11-17, 2007.

If you haven’t been, and you’re at all interested in early music, recorders, instrument making in general, improvisational music, music teaching, or music publishing, you should try it.

There’s an exhibition, where instrument makers from all over the world come and show off what they can do. It’s a particularly good place to buy a recorder — you try them all out in the exhibition hall, and when you’ve decided which ones you’re serious about, you take them into the ladies room and play them and ask the people who come through to help you decide.

Also, all the people who sell music come with lots of stuff you can browse. Many of them give festival discounts, and they all hand out catalogs.

Many of the instrument makers have good players perform short exhibition concerts on their instruments, so if you haven’t heard some of these early instruments, it’s a good opportunity to find out what they sound like. The first exhibition I went to in 1989, I heard Ben Harms demonstrate pipe and tabor, and heard some fine young musicians play Schubert’s ??Der Hirt auf dem Felsen?? with fortepiano and early clarinet.

Then there are the Fringe Concerts. All the Boston-area professional early musicians, and many from out-of-town find a space near the exhibition and give concerts. I listed some of the things my friends are doing in my “Cantabile post”:http://laymusic.org/wordpress/?p=328 a couple of weeks ago.

There are many good teachers among the musicians who come for the festival, so there are Masterclasses, symposia, and panel discussions, which are usually free if you’ve bought a pass to the exhibition.

And finally, there are the official festival concerts and the Opera. These are going to concentrate on French music this year. The opera is ??Psyché?? by Lully. So far my favorite opera (I’ve seen all the BEMF opera productions since 1993) was ??Thesée?? by Lully, so I’m looking forward to this one. The last year they did French, my favorite group was ??Ensemble Clément Janequin??, and they’ll be doing two concerts again this year. And there’s always a recorder and a viol concert. Thiis year the recorder concert is Paul Leenhouts’ group ??The Royal Wind Music??, and the viol concert is Philippe Pierlot, and
Jan Willem Jansen, harpsichord.

They unfortunately don’t always do a brass concert, and this year they aren’t.

I’m going to be blogging about the things I see and do. Comments on what I say are welcome. If you’re attending and would like to be a guest blogger, let me know and I’ll give you an account where you can post your own articles.

Report on the May 22 meeting

We played:

* Chédeville:
** Les Jumeaux
** Le Bosquet de Flore
** Marche des Signes
** La Sandrillon
* Morley:
** Good morrow, fair ladies of the May
** See, See, Myne Owne Sweet Jewel}
** Joy, joy doth so arise
** Crewell you pull away to soone
** Ladie, those eies
** Hould out my hart
* Cavendish, Come,Gentle Swains
* Purcell, ??Down with Bacchus??

h3. Schedule

* May 29, regular meeting, 7:45 PM.
* June 2, Party, 5 PM to whenever.
* June 5, regular meeting, 7:45 PM.
* June 12, no meeting, “Boston Early Music Festival”:http://www.bemf.org
* June 19, regular meeting, 7:45 PM.
* June 25, regular meeting, 7:45 PM.
* June 30, “Wort Processors”:http://www.wort.org June Picnic
* July 3, regular meeting, 7:45 PM.

I don’t know of any reason not to have our regular meetings every Tuesday all summer. But of course, something might come up.

Report on the May 15 meeting

We played:

* ??May hymn??
* Byrd:
** ??The Greedy Hawk??
** ??The Eagle’s Force??
* Cavendish ??Come gentle swains??
* Farmer, ??Fair Phyllis??
* Ravenscroft (lyrics, Laura and Sunny) ??Humans are so slow??
* Campian, ??Never weather-beaten Saile??

h3. Schedule

Regular meetings are on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html

We’ll be having a party on June 2, starting at 5 PM, also at my place. It’s potluck, so let me know whether you’re coming, and what you’re planning to bring.

We will not meet on Tuesday, June 12, during the “Boston Early Music Festival”:http://www.bemf.org.

If we want, we can go to the “Wort Processor’s”:http://www.wort.org summer picnic on June 30 in “Freetown”:http://www.wort.org/Directions/sterner.shtml and sing and play some easy music we know well.

h3. Other events

On Sunday, May 20, I’ll be playing at John Tyson’s student recital. It will be from 10 AM until 3 PM or so at Karen Kruskal’s house, 22 Kenwood St. Brookline. The schedule is flexible; it’s likely I’ll be in the afternoon, but if I know you’re coming, I can arrange to play when you’re there. It’s probably worth going to only if you like listening to *lots* of amateur (and not so amateur) recorder playing. I’ll be playing some Chédeville duets with John.

“Convivium Musicum”:http://www.convivium.org/, with Anne Kazlauskas, will be repeating the concert they did last weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

Lots of people we know will be doing things at BEMF:

* “Renaissonics”:http://www.renaissonics.com will be doing a workshop (10-1) and concert (2 PM) on Tuesday, June 12, in Williams Hall at the “New England Conservatory of Music”:http://www.newenglandconservatory.edu/.
* On Thursday, June 14, at 10 AM, Judith Conrad will be playing the music of Cabanilles in the “Paulist Center”:http://www.paulist.org/boston/ Library.
* On Friday, June 15, at 3:45 PM (*not* 3 PM as the “BEMF fringe concert listing”:http://www.bemf.org/pages/06fest/fringe.htm has it), Judith Conrad will play 16th- & 17th-century Gregorian chant-based keyboard music with a labyrinth to walk; music by Cabezon, Lassus & Titelouze in the Paulist Center Auditorium.

Report on the May 8 meeting

We played:

* Anonymous, ??Duo 113??
* Susato, ??Rondes??
* Byrd, ??The Greedy Hawk??
* Cavendish, ??Come, gentle swains??
* Josquin, ??La plus des plus??
* Ravenscroft, lyrics by Laura and Sunny, ??Dog walking round??
* Anonymous, ??Sumer is icumen in??

h3. Schedule

We are resuming our regular dropin meetings on Tuesdays from 7:45 to 10 PM.

We will be having a party on June 2, starting at about 5 PM. If the weather is good, we’ll gather in the back yard and grill things, then move up to my apartment and play and sing for a while; otherwise it will be like the Christmas party, where we eat and drink indoors and then play and sing for a while. Come and tell everybody you know to bring everybody they know. The food and drink are pot luck.

We will probably not meet on Tuesday, June 12, since most people will be doing “Boston Early Music Festival”:http://www.bemf.org stuff.

On Saturday, June 30, the “Boston Wort Processors”:http://www.wort.org are having their summer picnic in Freetown, Massachusetts. This year they will be roasting a whole pig. If a few of us come, we can sing some drinking songs and maybe play a few things we know well.

Walk for Hunger is this Sunday (May 6)

The Project Bread Walk for Hunger is this Sunday, May 6. This means two things:

* The Cantabile Renaissance band will be playing at a beautiful site on the banks of the Charles River, at the Cambridge-Watertown line on Greenough Boulevard. If you’re out and about (or if you’re one of the walkers), stop by and listen. We’ll be there from 10 AM to 3 PM, with the following schedule:
** 10-11: solos and duets.
** 11-12: Quilisma Consort
** 12-1: Cantabile Renaissance Band
** 1-2: Quilisma Consort
** 2-3: Cantabile Renaissance Band
* The dropin meetings resume on Tuesday May 8. If you weren’t able to perform with us, please start coming now that we’re back to being a dropin group. I have actually been typesetting a fair amount of new stuff, with no chance to play it while we were working on the program for the Walk. So over the next few weeks we’ll be playing things like ??The Greedy Hawk?? by William Byrd and ??Come, Gentle Swains?? by Michael Cavendish.

Fixes to Dowland publishing

I’ve uploaded new versions of both Book I and Book III of the Dowland project to “the Serpent Publications lulu.com store”:http://stores.lulu.com/laymusic.

“Book I”:http://www.laymusic.org/dowland-I.html has a fix to one note in the bass part of “Can she excuse my wrongs”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/381.html, and some underlay and ficta fixes in “My thoughts are winged with hopes”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/111.html.

“Book III”:http://www.laymusic.org/dowland-III.html has a fix to the whole first couple of phrases of the ??Cantus Primus?? part of “Come when I call”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/399.html. Dowland’s printer had printed it with the wrong clef, although the right line for the Bb in the key signature.

One of the things wrong with “lulu.com”:http://www.lulu.com as a place to publish your work is that you don’t know who’s bought your stuff. So if you’re reading this, and you paid for either Book I or Book III before April 10, 2007, please let me know so I can send you an updated copy.

Additions

These are mostly things the “Cantabile Renaissance Band”:http://www.laymusic.org/windband.html will be playing at the “Walk for Hunger”:http://laymusic.org/wordpress/?page_id=318 on May 6.

Several “Ravenscroft”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#45 rounds:

* “Medley Round”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/403.html with 4 tunes, including “Shall I go walk the woods so wilde”.
* “Oken leaves”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/338.html
* “The Nightingale”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/407.html
* “As I me walked in a May morning”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/410.html

A “John Baldwin”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#74 “consort piece”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/406.html, based on the ??As I me walked in a May morning?? tune. One band member remarked on how oddly like Aaron Copland it sounds.

I also updated a *very* old transcription of the “Thomas Weelkes”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#2 trio, “The nightingale, the organ of delight”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/56.html.

And I added an Anonymus “duet”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/411.html from the ??Britannica Musica?? Elizabethan Consorts II book.

Birthday party

I had a birthday party on March 4. It was a more complicated party than usual, because I organized a bunch of friends to go to see Oliver Twist at the “American Repertory Theatre”:http://www.amrep.org. (I have a credit as the serpent instructor.)

Then we went back to my place and had food, and before the birthday cake, I made everybody listen to the “Marcello Sonata”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/365.html that I’d been practicing with Hope Ehn.

Here are some “pictures”:http://serpent.laymusic.org/gallery/view_photo.php?set_albumName=birthday04 taken by Dennis Ehn and Ishmael Stefanov.

There’s a “video”:http://serpent.laymusic.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=birthday07video of the sonata, taken by Dennis Ehn. There were some ensemble problems on the fourth movement, but otherwise, that’s the way I play the recorder these days. I’m trying to get it onto youtube instead of my own server, but I didn’t read the restrictions well enough, so I didn’t realize I’ll have to break it up into two or more pieces to get it less than 10 minutes. But there’s the file as I got it from Dennis, and a version that I trimmed and compressed and added titles to.

Report on the February 27 meeting

We played:

* Ravenscroft ??O my fearful dreams??
* Morley, ??Good morrow, fair ladies of the May??
* Susato group:
** ??Entre du fol??
** ??Danse du Roy??
** ??Bergerette??
** ??Bergerette: Sans roch??
** ??La Morisque??
** ??La Battaille??
** ??Passe et medio??
* Dowland, ??O mighty God??, all three parts, that is, including ??When David’s life by Saul was often sought?? and ??When the poor cripple by the pool did lie??
* Purcell, ??He that would an alehouse keep??

h3. Schedule

The rehearsals for the next two months are restricted to people who will be performing with us. So I’ll probably be sending these detailed reports to that list rather than the wider list. If you want to see what we’re working on in general, I’ll be keeping the “spring performance page”:http://laymusic.org/wordpress/?page_id=318 up to date.

h3. Performing

In theory the deadline for signing up to perform was yesterday, but I’m letting a couple of people dither a little longer, so there’s still time if you want to join us, but act soon. The rules are:

* If you want to play on March 24, you must come to the rehearsal on March 20, and to at least one and preferably both of the rehearsals on March 6 and March 13. Recorder players are especially welcome at this performance.
* If you want to play on May 6, you must come to most of the rehearsals between now and then, except that if you aren’t also playing on March 24 you shouldn’t come on March 20. We can discuss the meaning of the word “most”, but anyone with an absolute commitment to being somewhere else more than half the time certainly shouldn’t sign up. Probably both the April 17 and the April 24 rehearsals will be compulsory.
* To be a performer, you have to be willing to treat this as a serious performing group, not as a dropin group. This means treating rehearsal time as a scarce resource by arriving on time, saving most conversation for the beer-drinking part of the evening, bringing the instruments you intend to perform with, having your music in order, etc.