Renaissance Instruments and Voice

Saturday, March 16, 8:00 pm
Synod Hall


"They played and sang with flair and flexibility...the music and readings took one delightful turn after another"

—The New York Times


Hello, Columbus. Follow risqué chaconne and exotic canario from 16th century Spain into the New World. Olé.

Program Listing

From Spanish Dominions

Ex Umbris Members
Grant Herreid: tenor, vihuela de mano, baroque guitar
Paul Shipper: bass, vihuela de mano, baroque guitar, recorder, percussion
Tom Zajac: countertenor, recorder, flute, sackbut, harp, pipe & tabor, bagpipes, castanets

With Special Guests
Tina Chancey: vihuela de arco, kamenç, recorder
Christa Patton: Renaissance harp, harp, recorder, flute, bagpipes
Nell Snaidas: soprano, Renaissance guitar

Program

I. Moors
Di perra mora
     Anonymous
Kûrsi from Nuba Ghrib
     Arab-Andalusian; arranged by Tom Zajac
Si te quitasse los hierros
     Diego Pisador
O voy
     Román
Yo me soy la morenica
     Anonymous

II. Jews
Una matica de ruda
     Traditional, Sephardic
Fantasia al quarto tono
     Luis de Milan; arranged for 2 by Grant Herreid
Israel mira tus montes
     Alonso Mudarra; arranged by Grant Herreid

III. Canarias
Flérida para mi dulce y sabrosa
     Diego Pisador, anonymous; arranged by Grant Herreid
En la Gran Canaria
     text: Lope de Vega; music: Grant Herreid/Ex Umbris after 16th c.     examples
Endechas de Canaria
     Miguel de Fuenllana/Diego Pisador
Canario
     Tom Zajac, after 17th c. examples

IV. Romance de Conde Claros
Count Claros in Love
     text: Anonymous; tune: reconstruction of the 16th c. melody by Grant Herreid
Quiero dormir y no puedo
     Juan Vasquez
No me hableys conde
     Vasquez
Si te vas a bañar
     Pisador

The Tryst
     Mano a mano los dos amores
        Anonymous
Covarde caballero
     Vasquez

The Discovery and the Sentence
     Juizio fuerte será dado
        Triana
Diferencias sobre Conde Claros
     Enrique Valderrábano; arr: Grant Herreid

The Rescue and Celebration
     Diferencias sobre Conde Claros
             Improvised after Luis de Narváez

V. Dance
Villano
     music: Grant Herreid, after 17th c. settings
O qué bién que baila Gil
     Anonymous
Gran Chacona
     text: Luis Briçeño (1626); music: Grant herreid/Ex Umbris after Juan Arañes (1624)




Program Notes


  When King Ferdinand accepted the keys of the city of Granada from King Boabdil on January 2, 1492, he assured the defeated Moor that he would safeguard the rights and practices of his people. But as Christian fervor continued to envelop the peninsula, and the "Jewish problem" was settled later that year with the edict of expulsion, the Inquisition turned its gaze southward. Although they were not expelled by decree until 1609, in reality the Muslims, like the Jews, were either compelled to convert to Christianity or encouraged to leave. Thus, in this instance of 'ethnic cleansing', the unofficial tolerance and pragmatism that had permitted the three cultures of the Iberian peninsula to live side by side, by necessity if not actually peacebly, for hundreds of years, officially came to an end.

I. The Moors
  In the centuries leading up to the reconquista political relations between the querulous Muslim and Christian kingdoms were extremely flexible, subject as they were to the vagaries of necessity and pragmatism. Alliances on both sides were often short-lived. Even the medieval Spanish hero El Cid seems to have fought along side the Moorish champions almost as often as he fought against them. The same seems to be true of the personal relations between some Moors and Christians in affairs of the heart, given the evidence of songs "Si te quitasse los hierros", and "Di perra mora". Even after the fall of Granada brought down the last Iberian Moorish kingdom, the interchange between the two cultures of the peninsula continued in the border areas as it had for centuries. Intolerance was still the order of the day; in fact I have heard it suggested that while the rest of Europe favored the round-backed lute (the western descendant of the Arabic oud), because of its Moorish connotations the lute was shunned by the Christian Iberians in favor of the flat-backed vihuela. But in the aftermath of the reconquista some parts of Christian Spain may have developed a taste for 'things Moorish', creating a demand for stories, songs and plays portraying Muslim characters, much as Native American stories and legends were popular in North America in the 19th century. The nuba music of modern day North Africa, though now a composed tradition, traces its lineage directly to the music of the Moors in Spain, and may represent a vestige of the music of 16th century Andaluz.

II. The Jews
  Very little music detailing the lives of the Spanish Jews survives in the written sources, but of the many songs collected in Sephardic communities around the world after the expulsion, some of them probably survive with their 15th century melodies. "Israel mira tus montes" was published by Mudarra in 1546 as a vihuela song; the accompaniment is here arranged for instruments.

III. The Canaries
  Spain completed the conquest of the Canary Islands in 1496. A century later, Abreu Galindo wrote of the natives of the Island of Gran Canaria, as quoted by Maurice Esses:

    "They had houses where they used to gather to dance and sing. Their baile (dance) was quite brisk and lively, the same which today they call canario. Their songs were sorrowful and sad, or amorous, or mournful, which we call endechas."

  The endechas set by Pisador (1552) and Fuenllana (1557), which we render here instrumentally, fit this description exactly. The fact that they use virtually the same melody, which is called by Pisador 'endechas de canaria', seems to indicate that this melody was particularly identified with the Canary Islands. By the late 16th century the instrumental canario was an aristocratic dance not only in Spain but also throughout most of Europe. Although it was danced on the Spanish stage as early as 1554, no musical settings of the canario are extant in Spanish sources of the 16th century, though settings found in France, Italy, England and Germany attest to its widespread popularity. In his play San Diego de Alcalá, Lope de Vega gives us a remarkable set of words sung a la canaria, to which the Canary Islanders dance just before the Spanish invaders arrive. We present this song in our own arrangement of the prevalent 16th century tune, followed by an energetic version for bagpipes inspired by 17th century Spanish originals.

IV. Romance
  The romance is the traditional ballad of Spain. Unlike the English traditional ballads collected by Child, which seldom were written down, most of the romances were printed in 16th century collections. Many romances were set to music and performed in aristocratic circles, and Spanish poets often wrote glosas, new poems composed around the older ballads. "Conde Claros", a long ballad of over 400 lines published in the Silva de Romances (Zaragoza, 1550), probably dates from the 15th century, for part of it was set by Juan del Encina, (Cancionero musical de palacio, c. 1500). One tune became associated with the singing of "Conde Claros" in the 16th century, and also became a vehicle for instrumental improvisation and composition. Since this tune consists only of one phrase of music, I have added a conjectural second phrase. In our rendition of this romance, we present a shortened version of 140 lines, with interpolations of villancicos from the vihuela books and part of the setting by Encina, in what could be thought of as a variation of the poetic glosa.

V. Dance
  Dancing was an important part of Spanish culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. As Maurice Esses puts it:

    "Dancing pervaded secular as well as sacred festivities. It was cultivated in the palaces by the aristocracy, on stage by professionals, in the churches by choirboys, and in the streets by the lower classes."

  The villano was a rustic song and dance from the earlier 1500's. It was often used in the theater and became in the 17th century a stylized dance in aristocratic circles. In 1642 Esquivel Navarro described the villano, as translated in Esses'book:

    "The boleo is executed in the villano. It is a kick which one performs ... by raising one's foot as high as possible and fully extending one's leg. One has to execute it by raising one's foot to the utmost degree. It requires much diligence because, from trying to raise their feet as much as possible, I have seen some people fall on their backs."

  The anonymous 'O qué bién que baila Gil' describes the young man Gil performing such a move to please the girls: "Now his feet seem to be on fire, now they fly through the air!" We have inserted our version of the villano into the song, and we have taken the text literally, with the villano accompanied by the tamboril (little drum) and the chacona by the sonajas (castanets).
  One of the most notorious dances was the chacona, which made its appearence around the year 1600. This extremely erotic and lascivious dance seems to have been imported from the New World, undoubtedly bringing with it influences of Native American and black African music. It caught on quickly in Spain, and just as quickly spread to Italy and France. In Spain it was roundly denounced as indecent by the church authorities, and was banned from stage plays by the Crown in 1615. The chacona was often sung as well. In an early 17th century treatise Juan Ferrer writes (quoted from Esses):

    "Another harmful feature [of stage plays] consists of the indecent and obscene songs which come from the comedies. For, because they are sung on the streets at night by dissolute people, these songs not only corrupt the young and incite them to morally lax behavior, but they even disturb upright and retiring people with their obscene words in such a deluge that these people are forced to plug up their ears in their own homes."

  In a certain city in Spain there circulated for a time one of these songs, known as the chacona, which was so lewd that it eventually led to very serious scandals. The introduction of these obscene songs has been so excessive that many times prelates have banned them under penalty of excommunication.
  The chacona was often accompanied by sonajas or castanets, and featured variations of the refrain:

    ¡Vida, vida, vida bona!
    To life, life, the good life!
    ¡Vida, vámanos a chacona!
    Life, let's go to chacona!

as found in a 4-part chacona by Arañes, published in Rome in 1624. The chacona is found as a strummed chord pattern in almost all of the early 17th century guitar books, but the Arañes setting is the only one with any sort of melody indicated. I have reconstructed, or rather deconstructed, a less composed version, utilizing melodic material from and adapting the refrain of Arañes' 4-part setting. Of the many extant chacona texts, this one from Luis de Briçeño's guitar treatise of 1626 is one of the most fun. While not warranting excommunication, we hope this Ex Umbris arrangement, with improvised instrumental interludes and composed musical effects, evokes the irreverent spirit of a long-lost dance song that can probably never be 'authentically' reconstructed.

    --Grant Herreid

Ex Umbris Bios


   Ex Umbrishas attracted the attention of audiences and critics alike with unique and evocative performances of medieval, Renaissance and early baroque music. Ex Umbris members Grant Herreid, Paul Shipper and Tom Zajac use their virtuosity and versatility on early strings, winds, percussion and voice to enliven the finest art music of the past, while their imagination, improvisational skills, and affinity with many styles of traditional music inspire explorations and reconstructions of the lost and unwritten traditions of early music. They participated as musicians and lecturers in the 12-part music-education series Exploring the World of Music for PBS educational television. Ex Umbris performed for the score of the Ric Burn's documentary on the history of New York City that aired the Fall of1999 on PBS, and also appeared at the 5th Millennium Council event in the East Room of the White House, for the Clinton administration, on January 25th, 1999. In programs that are "inventive and colorful" (The Washington Post), that take "one delightful turn after another" (The New York Times), presented with "a welcome sense of drama" (The New York Times), and a unique style that has made "Ex Umbris....that one new discovery of this year" (Frankfurter Allgemeine), Ex Umbris strives, in the noblest Renaissance tradition, to delight the ear, to stimulate the mind, and to move the heart of the listener. Ex Umbris has two recordings on the Dorian label: CHACONA, Renaissance Spain in the Age of Empire; and THE DIAMOND OF FERRARA, Music from the court of Ercole I of Ferrara.

   Grant Herreidis a versatile musician/director/teacher on the early music scene. As a multi-instrumentalist and singer he performs frequently on winds, strings and voice with Hesperus and Piffaro, and he plays theorbo and lute with the baroque ensemble ARTEK and New York's City Opera. He resides in the woods north of New York City, teaches at Mannes College of Music in New York and directs the New York Continuo Collective. Grant has created and directed several theatrical early music shows, including 'Il Caffé d'Amore', a pastiche of early 17th century Italian songs and arias, and the 15th century English 'Holly and Ivy: A Mid-Winter Feast of Fools'. For the Amherst Early Music Festival he created and directed 'A Day At The Faire', an Elizabethan rustic music-drama; a production of Guarini's 'Il Pastor Fido'; 'The Ballet of the Twelve Nations: Prelude to the Thirty Years War', an early 17th century German production featuring alchemy and intrigue, and 'The Masque of the Gypsies', based on works by Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton. For Piffaro's 15th anniversary weekend he wrote and directed 'Of Dancing and Sweet Music's Power', based on English masques and Italian intermedi. But mostly he devotes his time to exploring the esoteric unwritten traditions of early Renaissance music with the group Ex Umbris. He has recorded for Archiv, Dorian, Windham Hill, Lyrichord, Musical Heritage Society, Newport Classics and others.

   Paul Shipperis a singer, actor, director, and player of many instruments. A familiar face to early music audiences worldwide, he has performed as a soloist at many of the world's leading festivals including Spoleto, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Cracow, Edinburgh, Regensburg, Boston, Ravinia, Athens and Aix en Provence. Currently a member of Artek, and co-founder of Ex Umbris and Bottom's Dream, he has also performed and recorded with many of the country's leading early music ensembles such as Pomerium, Concert Royale, the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Ensemble for Early Music. As a director, he has worked on medieval plays, one-woman shows, operas from Scarlatti to Gilbert and Sullivan, and has staged baroque works in both authentic and modern styles, including Grant Herreid's Il Caffe d'Amore, and La Locura for Lizzy and the Theorboys. Mr. Shipper has also created shows for the Lincoln Center Institute, the Boston Early Music Festival, Mannes College of Music, Clarion Music, and other venues. He will make his European directorial debut in 2000. He is also a frequent lecturer on music, manuscripts, and theater at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters. His nearly 50 CD's can be heard on Harmonia Mundi, Dorian , Lyrichord, RCA, Windham Hill, and M.H.S.

   Tom Zajac, known for his instrumental versatility, is a member of Piffaro, a Renaissance wind band, a frequent guest artist with the Folger Consort, of Washington, DC, and has appeared as well, with many other leading ensembles in the US including the King's Noyse, Newberry Consort, Anonymous 4, Waverly Consort, Concert Royal, and New York's Ensemble for Early Music. He has appeared on over 30 recordings, ranging from Medieval dance to baroque opera, to contemporary folk-rock, on Dorian, Deutsche Gramophon, Angel EMI, Virgin Veritas, Harmonia Mundi, Lyrichord, Windham Hill, and others. He played serpent in a work by Peter Schikele for the nationally broadcast radio show A Prairie Home Companion, hurdy gurdy for an American Ballet Theater Company performance of a work choreographed by Twyla Tharp, bagpipe for an internationally broadcast Gatorade commercial, and percussion for a 16th-century equestrian ballet at the Berkeley Early Music Festival in California. The sound of his bagpipe also awoke the astronauts every morning on a recent space shuttle mission. Tom teaches at recorder and early music workshops throughout the US, is on the faculty of the University of Maryland, College Park, and directs the community-based ensemble, Trinitas in Philadelphia, where he resides.

Guest Artists

   Tina Chancey, a founding member and co-director of HESPERUS, is also a former member of the Folger Consort, the Ensemble for Early Music and the New York Renaissance Band. A multi-instrumentalist specializing in early bowed strings from the rebec and vielle to the kamenj, viol and lyra, she has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to support solo performances on the pardessus de viole at the Kennedy Center and Weil Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. She has performed with Ex Umbris, La Rondinella, and QUOG, an improvisational multi-media music theater group. Dr. Chancey received her PhD in Musicology from the Union Institute. Her articles on early music appear in scholarly and popular publications, and she has recorded for a score of labels from Arabesque to Windham Hill. She directs "What's That Note, Inc.," teaching sight singing and ear training to amateur singers, and also works as an independent recording producer.

   Christa Patton, originally trained as an oboist, has since turned to other wind as well as stringed instruments. She has performed traditional music of southern Italy with I Giullari di Piazza, and medieval and Renaissance music throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan with New York's Ensemble for Early Music, Piffaro, the Renaissance Band, and Ex Umbris. As a baroque harpist, Christa has beformed with Artek, Clarion Music Society and the Wolf Trap Opera Company. A Fulbright scholar, Christa is presently studying baroque harp in Milan, Italy with harpist Mara Galassi. Christa has recorded for the Lyrachord, Helicon and Dorian labels.

   Hailed as a "first class actress" and "impressive young singer" (OPERA MONTHLY and THEATER WEEK) soprano Nell Snaidas stirs audiences with "her extremely moving singing" (Frankfurt Zeitung). A graduate of the Mannes College of Music, Nell began her professional singing career at age sixteen when she was chosen by the New Jersey Opera Theater to appear as a soloist in their statewide tour of opera favorites. While still in conservatory she was featured in leading roles with New York City's renowned zarzuela company, The Repertorio Español. She also starred in the Thalía Spanish Theater's production of "Las Leandras" at the Internacional Festival de la Zarzuela at the Chamizal in Mexico. Miss Snaidas is a frequent soloist with many premiere early music ensembles including ARTEK, Hesperus, The NY Ensemble for Early Music and EX UMBRIS with whom she recorded "CHACONA: The music of Renaissance Spain and Her Dominions" on Dorian Records. Her last appearance at the Tage Alte Musik Festivalwas in Grant Herreid's "Il Caffe d'Amore". Miss Snaidas was chosen to sing the role "Lisetta" in "Gli Equivoci nel Sembiante" for the opening operatic performance of the Internazionale Festivale di Scarlatti at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. Nell is a member of PLAY IT BY EAR, an opera improv ensemble under the direction of Rhoda Levine, and the internationally acclaimed Gerard Edery Ensemble, a guitar, uod, percussion & vocal quartet devoted to Spanish and Sefardic music. She can be heard on several of the group's recordings on SEFARAD RECORDS. Miss Snaidas is the vocal faculty chair at Highbridge Voices, a professional children's chorus for boys and girls in the Highbrigde section of the South Bronx.

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