Intermission

The King’s Noyse
David Douglass, director & violin
Robert Mealy, violin and viola
Shira Kammen, viola
Julie Andrijeski, viola
David Morris, bass violin
Paul O’Dette, lute
Ellen Hargis, soprano

Olde, Newe, Borrow’d, Blue
Program notes by David Douglass

The program you’ll hear this evening will be performed only once, since it is a gift from The King’s Noyse to the audience of the Renaissance and Baroque Society of Pittsburgh. Whipping up something special for the occasion of the Society’s 40th anniversary seemed only fitting, since we’ve enjoyed the warm acoustics of Synod Hall and the even warmer reception of its audience so many times over the years. I know that the idea of something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue, is more appropriate for a wedding than an anniversary, but you might say the rare combination a dedicated board, an appreciative and supportive audience, and the loving gift of music given by the hundreds of musicians who have performed here over the decades makes the Society appear to be a marriage made in heaven.

The occasion of this concert also offers us a wonderful opportunity to do something a little different, to break out of our usual boundaries of 16th- and 17th-century repertories for violin band. The music for Renaissance violin band does include an astounding degree of variety, and I’ve always tried to utilize that variety, to demonstrate contrasts and connections that illuminate the music’s expressive value to the people who created it. This program, with its foray into modern music is really no different. Even jazz, blues, and pop genres can have connections to the Renaissance. It’s really only the expanded harmonic language of modern music that separates it from earlier styles. But you could also say that those inauthentic harmonies are also natural to modern ears, and therefore allow the modern audience the same immediate connection to the music that Renaissance listeners had with their music.

We begin with Olde music from our concert repertory that might be familiar to the Society’s audience, a few pieces that could be included on a “greatest hits” recording of The King’s Noyse. After I chose the works for this section I realized that they are also some of the oldest in our repertory, included on our first CD The King’s Delight. I’ve always loved beginning concerts with Jog on. Its mood and message, summed up in the text “your merry heart goes all the day, your sad tires in a mile-a”, is one we’d all like to sustain in our day-to-day lives. Jog on, like nearly all of the anonymous works on the program, come down to us as simple melodies that I have arranged for the ensemble in 3- to 5-parts. Then, as with all of our concerts and in the manner of violin bands of the period, the musicians make the parts their own through their interpretations. The result is the wonderful combination of spontaneity and cohesion for which the Noyse has become known.

Of all the many ballads that Ellen Hargis has sung with us, Barbara Allen’s Cruelty has been one of the most popular with our audiences. That’s not surprising, seeing as it is also one of the few English ballads, like Greensleeves, to also have a consistent presence and popularity from the Renaissance period to the present day. Its age-old theme of dying for love is one reason for its sustained popularity, but I think Barbara Allen’s melody is the real secret of its longevity. The tune is very memorable, and it has the added twist of being in a major key. That contrast of mood between the sad text and major tonality lends poignancy to the ballad that it might not otherwise have.

I love O nachbar Roland (Good Neighbor Roland) by Samuel Scheidt, a monument of the instrumental repertory from the early 17th century. I include this work by a German composer on an otherwise English program because the melody on which it is based was one known originally in England as Lord Willoughby’s welcome home, as evidenced by the setting for lute by William Byrd. The style of composition Scheidt employs in O Nachbar Roland is also one typical of English composers. The melody, clearly stated in the middle of the composition, is woven throughout the work. But Scheidt’s treatment of the tune goes well beyond any English fantasy, telling an extended story on a veritably cinematic scale.

The Newe section of the program contains works new to The King’s Noyse and the Society’s audience. And I suppose some of them are also new in that they are my creations, as opposed to works from the Renaissance. It might be new to us, but There dwelt a man in Babylon was a ballad and ballad tune that was especially familiar to Elizabethan theatergoers. Shakespeare, for instance, makes reference to it in his play Twelfth Night. My arrangement of There dwelt a man in Babylon is quite complex, in contrast to the Irish A funeral jigg, an interpretive choice I made to highlight the stark, bleak mood that the piece would have created in its day. Funeral jigs were danced to honor the recently departed, sometimes in a funeral procession in a horse drawn cart. They are normal jigs, musically speaking, but played and danced very, very slowly, creating an unearthly effect.

New Year’s Eve is an English country dance tune. The arrangement I wrote that you will hear tonight is in memory of my mother, Aimee Douglass, who died in 2003. It seemed appropriate to program it to follow the funeral jig. I chose that particular tune because of its melancholy character, but also because New Year’s Eve was always a time she particularly enjoyed. My arrangement includes two variations on a three-part ground drawn from the implied harmonies of the tune. The four rising notes of the ground lend a hopeful character to the tune, and by including the ground I could also highlight the rich and beautiful sounds of the Renaissance violas and bass violin.

The last set before intermission is more lighthearted, although the message of Carpe Diem of When May is in his prime carries a bit more weight in light of the previous set. The name of the organist and composer Richard Nicholson is fairly unfamiliar today, possibly because his extant output is relatively small. His music comes down to us in manuscript, with the one exception of one madrigal that Thomas Morley included in his publication Triumphes of Oriana (1601). Triumphes of Oriana is a collection of twenty-five madrigals by twenty-three composers, the works written in tribute to an aging but still popular Queen Elizabeth I. Morley’s inclusion, alongside the most popular English composers of his day, indicates the high regard with which Nicholson was held. Having said that, it might not be best to judge him solely on the pieces I’ve chosen for tonight’s program. In a merry May morn and Cuckoo are not so much monuments of composition as works intended for comic entertainment.

Our two sets of Borrow’d music contain works that were originally written for different forces than you’ll hear tonight, and in that way I suppose it is also Newe. A great deal of The King’s Noyse repertory is borrowed in this manner: vocal music performed instrumentally, lute songs arranged for string accompaniment or to simply for instruments alone, or any other music, really. To professional entertainers, it’s all fair game, and Renaissance violin bands weren’t shy about appropriating music. O Death, rock me asleep, What if a day, and Fine Knacks for ladies were composed as lute songs, and I have unraveled those lute accompaniments into four- and five-part string accompaniments. Ray Nurse, a colleague in Vancouver, had the wonderful idea of incorporating Michael Praetorius’ setting of Mistresse Winter’s Jump into Fine knacks for ladies (two additional borrowings, from Mr. Nurse and Mr. Praetorius!), and that is how we present it this evening.

We are performing William Byrd’s beautiful consort song O dear life as an instrumental reflection on O Death, rock me asleep, and following that, Byrd’s The Battel. Originally written for solo harpsichord, The Battel presents a less serious look at the very serious subjects of war and death. There are several songs and instrumental pieces written by English composers glorifying, in the words of Tobias Hume, “the bravery of glittering shields, lusty, hearts, and famous deeds, music worth the ear of Jove, a sight for Kings, and still a soldier’s love.” Perhaps it was the advent of the televised horrors of war that have made such romanticisms less possible today, but Byrd’s depictions are oddly charming, in a kind of fantasy on war. Tonight’s performance of The Battel is abridged. Byrd’s work proved to long too include of it in total.

The popularity of English violinists in northern Europe was a natural result of proximity and the easy availability of English violinists. The German violinist Johann Schop, a student of the English violinist and composer William Brade, continued the English tradition of division playing championed by players like Brade. Division playing is simply the invention of variations and ornamentations in running passages and sequences. His divisions on Lachrimae are a kind of borrowing common to instrumentalists of his period, since division playing usually involves “covering” a famous piece, and his adaptation of Dowland’s song, Flow my tears, succeeds in making the song his own. Only he could have created it, quirky, dissonant, and utterly beautiful.

In truth, some modern day popular songs are easier to adapt to Renaissance polyphony than others. There are, after all, 17th-century grounds, like the passacaglia or folia, which are similar to blues progressions. In our final set, Blue, we set our sights on jazz songs with a bluesy bent. The harmonies of Summertime, are close to those of Gershwin’s Prelude #2, only slower, like the heat of a summer day. ‘round midnight and Some other time are also slow grounds, and I chose all of the vocal works in this set (as well as the previous sets) around the theme of time, as a comment on and tribute to the 40th anniversary. Outside of that, the familiarity of this last set of music is a kind of luxury. Unlike the earlier works on the program, it’s not necessary for me to provide the information in order to create the appropriate context to enhance your enjoyment of the music. You have plenty of context already, and like your immediate connection to the blues harmonies, you’ll bring expectations to the performance that are rooted in your history with the music, just like Renaissance listeners brought to the previous music on our program.

Forty years is a long time. In 1968 there weren’t many concert series that included Renaissance music, and of those that did, there aren’t many that are still around today. The King’s Noyse has only been around for half of that time, but I’m sure I can speak for everyone in the ensemble, or for that matter everyone who’s ever been on the Society’s series, when I say we feel lucky and honored to have been a part of it all. Thank you so much.

Olde, Newe, Borrow’d, Blue
English texts

Jog on
Jog on, jog on, the footpath-way,
And merrily hen’t the stile-a;
Your merry heart go’es all the day,
Your sad tires in a mile-a.

Your paltry mony bags of Gold,
What need have we to stare-for,
When little or nothing soon is told,
And we have the less to care-for?

Cast care away, let sorrow cease,
A Figg for Melancholly;
Let’s laugh and sing, or if you please
We’l frolick with sweet Dolly.

Barbara Allen’s Cruelty
In Scarlet Town where I was bound,
There was a fair maid dwelling,
Whom I had chosen for my own,
And her name it was Barbara Allen.

All in the merry month of May,
When green leaves they was springing,
This young man on his death-bed lay,
For the love of Barbara Allen.

He sent his man unto her then,
To the town where she was dwelling,
“You must come to my master dear,
If your name be Barbara Allen.

“For death is printed in his face,
And sorrow’s in him dwelling,
And you must come to my master dear,
If your name be Barbara Allen.”

“If death be printed in his face,
And sorrow’s in him dwelling,
Then little better shall he be
For bonny Barbara Allen.”

So slowly, slowly she got up,
And slowly she came to him,
And all she said when she came there,
“Young man, I think you are a-dying.”

He turn’d his face unto her then,
“If you be Barbara Allen,
My dear,” said he, “come pitty me,
As on my death-bed I am lying.”

“If on your death-bed you be lying,
What’s that to Barbara Allen?
I cannot keep you from your death,
So farewell,” said Barbara Allen.

He turn’d his face unto the wall,
And Death came creeping to him;
“Then adieu, adieu and adieu to all,
And adieu to Barbara Allen.”

As she was walking on a day,
She heard the bells a -ringing,
And they did seem to ring to her,
“Unworthy Barbara Allen!”

She turn’d herself around about,
And she spy’d the corps a-coming;
“Lay down, lay down the corps of clay,
That I may look upon him.”

And all the while she lookèd on,
So loudly she lay laughing;
While all her friends cry’d out amain,
“Unworthy Barbara Allen!”

When he was dead and laid in grave,
Then Death came creeping to she.
“O Mother! Mother! make my bed,
For his death hath undone me.

“A hard-hearted creature that I was
To slight one that lov’d me so dearly,
I wish I ‘d been more kind to him,
In time of life when he was near me.”

So this maid she then did dye,
And desired to be buried by him,
And repented herself before she dy’d,
That e’er she did deny him.

As she was lying down to die,
A sad feud she fell in;
She said, “I pray, take warning by
Hard-hearted Barbara Allen.”

In a merry May morn
When the fields the flow’rs adorn,
The cuckoo chants it cheerfully,
And every bird doth sing for joy
Of such a pleasant Spring,
With chirping notes most merrily.
Then said the good man to his wife:
“The cuckoo lives a pleasant life:
Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”

When May is in his prime,
Then may each heart rejoice,
When May bedecks each branch with green,
Each bird strains forth his voice;
The lively sap creeps up
Into the blooming thorn;
The flow’rs with cold in prison kept,
Now laugh the frost to scorn;
All nature’s nymphs triumph
While joyful May doth last;
When May is gone, of all the year
The pleasantest time is past.

May makes the cheerful hue,
May breeds and brings new blood,
May marcheth throughout every limb,
May makes the merry mood.
May pricketh tender hearts
Their warbling notes to tune;
Full strange it is, yet some we see
Do make their May in June.
Thus things are strangely wrought
While joyful May doth last;
When May is gone, of all the year
The pleasantest time is past.

All ye that live on earth,
And have your May at will
Rejoice in May, as I do now,
And use your May with skill.
Use May while that you may,
For May hath but his time
When all the fruit is gone,
It is too late the tree to climb.
Your liking and your lust is fresh
While May doth last;
When May is gone, of all the year
The pleasantest time is past.

O Death, rock me asleep
O Death, rock me to sleep,
Bring me to quiet rest;
Let pass my weary, guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on the passing bell.
Ring out the doleful knell,
Let the sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh.
Sound my death dolefully:
For now I die.

My pains, my pains, who can express?
Alas, they are so strong!
My dolours will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.

Farewell, my pleasures past:
My pains alone,
In prison strong who can express:
Alas they are so strong.
My dolours will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong,
Lest my woe work his cruel hope
That I must taste
This misery.

What if a day
What if a day,
Or a month, or a year
Crown thy delights
With a thousand sweet contentings?
Cannot a chance
Of a night or an hour
Crosse thy desires
With as many sad tormentings?
Fortune, honor, beauty, youth
Are but blossoms dying;
Wanton pleasure, doating love,
Are but shadowes flying.
All our joyes are but toyes,
Idle thoughts deceiving;
None have power of an hour
In their lives bereaving.

Earthes but a point to the world,
And a man is but a point
To the worlds compared center:
Shall then a point of a point be so vaine
As to triumph in a seely points adventure?
All is hazzard that we have,
There is nothing biding;
Days of pleasure are like streams
Through fair meadows gliding.
Weal and woe, time doth go,
Time is ever turning:
Secret fates guide our states,
Both in mirth and mourning.

Fine knacks for ladies
Fine knacks for ladies,
Cheap choice, brave, and new,
Good penniworthes, but money cannot woo.
I keep a fair, but for the fair to view;
A beggar may be liberal of love.
Tho' all my wares be trash, the heart is true.

Great gifts are guiles
And look for gifts again,
My trifles come as treasures from my mind.
It is a precious jewel to be plain,
Sometimes in shell
The orient’st pearls we find.
All others take a sheaf, of me a grain.

Within this pack, pins,
Points, laces, and gloves,
And diverse toys, fitting a country fair.
But in my heart,
Where duty serves and loves,
Turtles and twins, court’s brood,
A heavenly pair.
Happy the heart that thinks of no removes.

Summertime
Summertime,
And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high.
Your daddy's rich,
And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby,
Don't you cry.

One of these mornings
You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky.
But ‘til that morning
There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by.

‘round Midnight
It begins to tell,
'round midnight, midnight.
I do pretty well, till after sundown,
Suppertime I'm feelin' sad;
But it really gets bad
'round midnight.

Memories always start 'round midnight
Haven't got the heart to stand those memories,
When my heart is still with you,
And ol' midnight knows it, too.
When a quarrel we had needs mending,
Does it mean that our love is ending?
Darlin' I need you, lately I find
You're out of my heart,
And I'm out of my mind.

Let our hearts take wing
'round midnight, midnight,
Let the angels sing
For your returning.
Let our love be safe and sound.
When old midnight comes around.

Some other time
Twenty-four hours can go so fast,
You look around, the day has passed.
When you're in love, time is precious stuff;
Even a lifetime isn't enough.

Where has the time all gone to?
Haven't done half the things we want to.
Oh well,
We'll catch up some other time.

This day was just a token,
Too many words are still unspoken.
Oh well,
We'll catch up some other time.

Just when the fun is starting,
Comes the time for parting.
But let's be glad for what we've had
And what's to come.

There's so much more embracing
Still to be done, but time is racing.
Oh well,
We'll catch up some other time.

The King's Noyse, founded by David Douglass in 1988 , performs violin consort repertory from the 16th and 17th centuries. The name derives from the collective term used in Renaissance England for a group of violinists playing together, a “noise” (or “noyse”) of violins. The court ensemble was known as “The King’s Noyse.” Playing on instruments by Jason Visealter and Robert Young of New York City, in the design and construction of those from that period, these five gifted and renowned musicians have thrilled audiences around the world with their expressive and virtuosic performances. With a variety of vocal soloists and guest accompanists, The King's Noyse performs music from a wide range of late-Renaissance and early-Baroque European repertories, approaching each repertory from the perspective of professional entertainers. The ensemble has recorded for hmu and its CDs can be found online at noyseproductions.com.

David Douglass has been a leading figure in the world of Early Music performance for over 25 years. His playing has been praised by The New York Times for its "eloquence" and "expressive virtuosity", and through his groundbreaking work in the field of the early violin he has developed a historical technique which produces "a distinctively 'Renaissance' sound and style for the violin" (Fanfare). As director of The King's Noyse, and through his recreation of the improvisational repertory of the early violin band, he has received praise for his "enterprise and imagination" (Stereophile). Noted for his versatility, Mr. Douglass also frequently performs as a guest artist with many ensembles, playing the viola da gamba and medieval stringed instruments in addition to the violin. David Douglass is also a founding member of The Newberry Consort. In 2007 Mr. Douglass was named Artist-in–Residence at the Newberry Library in Chicago, as Musician-in-Residence and director of the Newberry Consort. Mr. Douglass is much in demand as a writer and lecturer on early violin history, technique and repertoire. His chapters on the violin are published in Schirmer's "Performer's Guides to Early Music", and his essays on the early violin can be found in Strings magazine. Mr. Douglass has recorded extensively for harmonia mundi usa, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Virgin, Erato, BMG, Berlin Classics, and Auvidis/Astrée labels. Recently Mr. Douglass formed Noyse Productions, an online record company selling compact discs and editions of music.

One of America’s leading historical string players, Robert Mealy has been praised for his “imagination, taste, subtlety, and daring” (Boston Globe); the New Yorker called him “New York’s world-class early music violinist.” He has recorded over 50 CDs on most major labels, ranging from Hildegard of Bingen with Sequentia to Renaissance consorts with the Boston Camerata and Rameau operas with Les Arts Florissants. Mr. Mealy has appeared at music festivals from Berkeley to Belgrade, and from Melbourne to Bergen. In New York he is a frequent leader and soloist with the New York Collegium, ARTEK, and Early Music New York, and serves as concertmaster for the distinguished Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra. A devoted chamber musician, he is a member of the medieval ensemble Fortune's Wheel and the 17c ensemble Spiritus along with the King’s Noyse. Mr. Mealy recently received Early Music America’s Binkley Award for outstanding teaching in his work directing the Yale Collegium Players and the Harvard Baroque Chamber Orchestra.

Known for her "indisputable mastery of [the violin] and of Baroque music interpretation," Julie Andrijeski enjoys performing with and leading various ensembles from coast to coast. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ms. Andrijeski performs with her highly acclaimed ensemble, Chatham Baroque. She is also an accomplished historical dancer and choreographer and often combines her skills as teacher, dancer and violinist in concerts and workshops. Ms. Andrijeski has taught baroque violin at Peabody Conservatory and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, is on the summer faculty of the Baroque Performance Institute, and has led the Baroque orchestra and taught Baroque dance at Case Western Reserve University where she is finishing up a long-overdue dual DMA in Early Music (CWRU) and Violin Performance (Cleveland Institute of Music).

Multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Shira Kammen has spent well over half her life exploring the worlds of early and traditional music. A member for many years of the early music Ensembles Alcatraz and Project Ars Nova, and Medieval Strings, she has also worked with Sequentia, Hesperion XX, the Boston Camerata, the Balkan group Kitka, the Oregon, California and San Francisco Shakespeare Festivals, and is the founder of Class V Music, an ensemble dedicated to performance on river rafting trips. She has performed and taught in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Israel, Morocco, and Japan, and on the Colorado, Rogue and Klamath Rivers. Shira happily collaborated with singer/storyteller John Fleagle for fifteen years, and performs now with several ensembles in addition to Fortune's Wheel: a new music group, Ephemeros; an eclectic ethnic band, Panacea; as well as frequent collaborations with performers such as Patrick Ball, medieval music expert Margriet Tindemans, and in many theatrical and dance productions. She has played on several television and movie soundtracks, including 'O', a modern high school-setting of Othello. Some of her original music will be heard in an upcoming independent film about fans of the work of JRR Tolkien. The strangest place Shira has played is in the elephant pit of the Jerusalem Zoo. She hopes to spend more time playing music of all kinds in the wilderness.

David Morris has performed with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Tafelmusik, American Bach Soloists, Musica Angelica and the Mark Morris Dance Company. He is a member of Musica Pacifica and the Sex Chordae Consort of Viols, and was the musical director of the baroque opera ensemble Teatro Bacchino. He has taught early music performance-practice at UC Berkeley, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Mills College and The Crowden School, whose orchestra he directed on three European tours. He received his M.A. in Music from U.C. Berkeley, and has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, New Albion, Dorian and New World Records.

Few instrumentalists establish themselves with such firm authority as Paul O'Dette has on the lute. He has been described him as "the clearest case of genius ever to touch his instrument." (Toronto Globe and Mail) One of the most influential figures in his field, O'Dette has helped define the technical and stylistic standards to which twenty-first-century performers of early music aspire. In doing so, he helped infuse the performance practice movement with a perfect combination of historical awareness, idiomatic accuracy, and ambitious self-expression. Though best known for his recitals and recordings of virtuoso solo lute music, Paul O'Dette maintains an active international career as an ensemble musician as well, performing with many of the leading early music soloists and ensembles. He is a member of the acclaimed continuo ensemble Tragicomedia.

Soprano Ellen Hargis is recognized as one of the world’s foremost interpreters of 17th and 18th century music. Called “the baroque music diva” by New Yorker magazine, she is a frequent collaborator with such leading ensembles as The King’s Noyse, The Newberry Consort, Tragicomedia, Piffaro, Theatre of Voices, the Mozartean Players, Fretwork and Andrew Lawrence-King and the Harp Consort. She has been a soloist with The Estonian National Symphony, The Virginia Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Portland, Seattle and Freiburg Baroque Orchestras, the CBC Radio Orchestra, the New York Collegium, The Mark Morris Dance Group, The American Bach Soloists, Musica Angelica, and Chicago’s Music of the Baroque. Ms. Hargis has performed with the conductors Harry Bicket, Jane Glover, Paul Goodwin, Daniel Harding, Monica Huggett, Nicholas Kraemer, Gustav Leonhardt and Andrew Parrott. She has appeared at many of the world’s leading festivals, including the Berkeley Festival, The New Music Festival, the Adelaide Festival in Australia, the Utrecht Festival in Holland, The St. Petersburg Early Music Festival in Russia, and the Munich, Bremen, Dresden, Vienna, Prague, Milan, Florence, Geneva, Madrid, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Oslo, Cordoba, St. Petersburg, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Tokyo, etc Resonanzen Festival in Vienna. A frequent performer at the Boston Early Music Festival, she has sung leading roles in each of their baroque opera production since 1987. Ellen Hargis’s discography embraces repertoire from medieval to contemporary music and comprises over 50 recordings. She teaches voice at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.