Mirie It Is
Fortune's Wheel

voices, vielles (bowed strings), and harps

Saturday, March 19, 2005  8:00 pm
Synod Hall



"living, breathing art"

– The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Fortune's Wheel brings a springtime garden of earthly–and heavenly–delights from medieval England. The four virtuosic performers breathe life into the lyrical and reverent poetry of the 13th and 14th centuries. Simple songs of love and nature, despairing laments, and joyous celebrations of the Virgin Mary create an unforgettable evening of "joye and blisse!"


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Bobbleheads will be for sale at the Fortune's Wheel performance.

Pre-concert talk


Join us for the pre-concert talk by Robert Mealy, member of Fortune's Wheel, from 7:00-7:30 in Synod Hall.



Program


FORTUNE'S WHEEL

Lydia Heather Knutson & guest artist Aaron Sheehan, voice
Shira Kammen & Robert Mealy, voice, vielle, harp

Mirie It is!

Fortune      (early 14th c.)
Mirie it is      (circa 1225)
Instrumental      traditional Scottish tune
Edi beo ?u hevene queenë      (pre-1300)

Ave celi regina virginum      (14th c.)
Ave mundi rosa
Bob and Alison      traditional Irish melodies arr. Kammen/Mealy

Ar ne kuth ich sorghe non      (ca 1270)
Fuwëles in the frith      (ca 1270)
Man mei longe him liues wene      (pre-1250)
Bryd one brere      (ca 1300)
Sancta Maria/Dou way Robin      (late 13th c.)

INTERMISSION

The hymns by St. Godric (ca 1215)
      Crist and Sainte Marie
      Sainte Marie virgine
      Sainte Nicholaes

Worldes bliss, have god day      (ca 1280)
Stand wel mo?er under rode (dialogue)      (early and mid-14th c.)
Instrumental      arr. Kammen/Mealy
On Yooles night (carol)      (mid-14th c.)

Stantipes (14th century dance tunes)      arr. Mealy/Kammen
In secreit place - text by William Dunbar, ca.1460-ca.1520      arr. Kammen
Somer is icumen in      (ca 1250)



Program Notes


Program Notes
        Mirie it is!

All medieval music is glimpsed from a great distance, but no repertory is so hard to see as that of England in the middle ages. Where France had a tradition of lyric song that lasted long enough for thousands of songs to be enshrined in manuscripts, the music we have from England of the same period is scattered and faint: much was destroyed when the monasteries were taken over by the state in the Renaissance, and much more has suffered from the ravages of time. What has come down to us, though, speaks in astonishingly vivid voices.

English medieval culture was strongly influenced by Continental developments (French was still the language of the aristocracy, and musical style would have followed suit) but alongside the cultivation of French sophistication there also grew up some intensely beautiful native styles of music. Our program, therefore, offers a garden of English delights, from the earliest surviving vernacular songs by the hermit St. Godric (here elaborated with our own harmonies), to the refined delights of French influenced polyphony. We present many of the songs in the vernacular that survive from this time with both music and text, as well as a few poems so irresistible we have set them to our own tunes.

The English repertoire is all the more tantalizing for the number of songs which survive without music. Those few that came down to us with musical notation we have only by purest chance. Bryd one brere, for example, exists only because this love song was copied on the back of a papal bull. Others had a much harder time: the delightful motet with the folk-song tenor Dou way Robin (or "get off me, Robin, the children will cry!") survives on a sheet of half-burnt parchment, the so-called Cotton Fragment. Because of the damage this music suffered, many of these songs present problems of sheer transcription. Mirie it is, for example, is missing its last note, and there are a few holes in the page that cancel some other neumes out. For this concert, we are drawing on a new edition of this repertoire prepared by Judith Overcash, who has taken a fresh look at the sources and corrected many misreadings of earlier editors.

Most of these songs date from the thirteenth century, and some from the beginning of the fourteenth, when new musical developments were coming over from France. The art of polyphony, of setting several voices together, was reaching new heights of sophistication in Paris, and the English were not slow to pick up on this sophisticated musical language. At the same time, a native tradition of polyphony developed, one that was probably influenced by local folkways. Gerald of Wales, writing around 1200, remarks on the improvised close harmony of the Welsh, which he attributes to their contact with the Norse and the Danes. When this folk tradition emerges in written polyphony, it is in the form of immensely sweet concords, with entire songs composed almost entirely in sixths and thirds. This would have seemed particularly strange to Parisian sophisticates, for the very sounds that we regard as most consonant were viewed as less perfect than fourths and fifths, and so to be used with caution. Two stunning examples of this style are found in Ave mundi rosa and Ave celi regina virginum.

A common thread throughout medieval English sacred music, both in Latin and in the vernacular, is a devoted love of Mary. This deep veneration was the source of frequent comment from Continental visitors, and the sweetness of so much of English polyphony seems especially apt for music to celebrate Christianity's great mother. In addition to the sacred music dedicated to and about Mary, she appears in the vernacular songs as well. Edi be thu, heven-queenë is a celebration of her tremendous accomplishments and contributions to the world. In Ar ne kuth ich sorghe non the singer, destitute and unjustly imprisoned, first calls out to Jesus for help. Finally in the last stanza she moves on to Mary, imploring her to intercede with her son Christ: "beseech thy son to have pity on us and bring us from this great misery."

We know a vivid instrumental tradition flourished in England, and in this program we have sought to bring back to life both those fragments that have come down to us, and the tradition they came out of. The art of instrumental music was almost entirely an improvised one in the middle ages, and the only way to reawaken that tradition is to improvise in the language of the time, as clearly, playfully, and eloquently as we can. We include one surviving dance in the popular form of the estampie, where each section is repeated, first with an open ending, then with a closed one. In the piece Stantipes, you will also hear tonight a gathering of the instrumental dances that have survived, along with our own elaborations upon them. We hope you take as much joy from this music as we have!

   -Robert Mealy

Bios


Fortune's Wheel Bios

Popular with critics and audiences alike "Fortune's Wheel takes its medieval music seriously then transforms [it]...into living, breathing art." (Cleveland Plain Dealer) Described as "exemplary performers whose musical instincts seem to be so right in everything they do..." (San Diego Reader), their performances are notable for their scholarship, zest, engaging improvisation, and joy. "Their enjoyment of the music and the pleasure they took in each other's company was contagious." (Boston Globe) They have been featured at the Amherst and Boston Early Music Festivals and by early music series throughout America as well as appearances in Mexico City and Regensburg Germany. Veterans of over 100 early music CDs, their first CD together, Pastourelle, is now available.

Lydia Heather Knutson has performed around the world with many ensembles appearing on radio and at leading international music festivals in the US, Canada, Europe, Latin America, and Australia. For nearly 10 years she was a member of Vox Feminae, the women's ensemble of Sequentia Cologne, with whom she recorded and toured extensively. As a soloist she has appeared with many groups including the Boston Camerata, Ex Umbris, Boston Cecilia, the Clemencic Consort (Vienna), Studio de la Musique Ancienne de Montréal, and La Fontegara (Mexico). She has taught voice at Harvard and Brown Universities, been a guest lecturer at Wellesley, Amherst and Bowdoin Colleges, and has taught workshops in medieval music from Vancouver to Mexico City. In addition to singing, Lydia Knutson is a Doctor of Chiropractic with a private practice in the Boston area.

Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life performing and teaching music. She received her degree in music from UC Berkeley and studied vielle with Margriet Tindemans. A member for many years of Ensemble Alcatraz, Ensemble Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with many other ensembles including Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, the King's Noyse, Magnificat Baroque Orchestra, Teatro Bacchino, and is the founder of Class V Music, a group created to perform on rafting trips. For fifteen years Shira happily collaborated with singer/storyteller John Fleagle. Along with Fortune's Wheel, she currently works with the contemporary music ensemble, Ephemeros, and Trouz Bras, a group devoted to the dance music of Celtic Brittany.

Robert Mealy has received much critical acclaim for his eloquent and imaginative performances on a wide variety of historical strings: he performs around the world on baroque violin, renaissance violin, lira da braccio, and medieval vielle and harp. He has recorded over fifty CDs with groups like Les Arts Florissants, Sequentia, the King's Noyse, and the Boston Camerata. He frequently appears as soloist and leader in New York, where he performs with the New York Collegium, ARTEK, and his French baroque ensemble LouisLouis. Mr. Mealy teaches workshops on historical string techniques and improvisation throughout the United States and Mexico. He is non-resident tutor of music at Harvard College, where he directs the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Guest artist, Aaron Sheehan, is a rising star of the new generation of American early music vocalists. A graduate of Indiana University he has performed in projects ranging from the Medieval to the Baroque Eras. He has recorded and toured in the US and Europe with Paul Hillier's "Theater of Voices," as well as appearances with The Lyra Concert Baroque Orchestra, Liber unUsualis, The Boston Cecilia, The Moscow Chamber Orchestra, and the Rose Ensemble. He played the title role in the "The Play of Daniel" at Western Michigan's Medieval institute, Orfeo, In Monteverdi's "Orfeo", and as the Evangelist in Bach's "Christmas Oratorio." Recent engagements have include the Monteverdi Vespers with Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, and a recording of rounds and songs found in Shakespeare's plays for Norton Publishing.

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