Volume XVIII, Number 4 Winter 2010/2011

THE CAROL: FROM MEDIEVAL TUNE TO CHRISTMAS STANDARD

Today the musical term “carol” is reserved for a type of strophic song sung at Christmas. These songs have a variety of origins; some have their roots in medieval English carols, but many come from later ages, particularly the 19th century. During the Middle Ages, a carol could be either an English or a Latin song; indeed, even the English songs were often “macaronic”—that is, the texts mixed both English and Latin words. These original carols were also strophic, and included a refrain—called a “burden”—that was sung at the beginning and after each verse (see Example 1 on page 3). Rather than being restricted to Christmas, their texts could be on almost any subject, including secular, religious, and even political topics. The surviving carol texts are mostly about the Virgin Mary or other Saints, but often relate to Christmas.

The form taken by the earliest carols has ties to medieval French court songs, especially the rondeau and the virelai, both of which feature a refrain, but one that is used in a more complicated manner than a simple alternation with the verse. The surviving music for the earliest carols includes several types: monophonic songs, 15th-century polyphonic songs, early Tudor polyphonic songs, and courtly songs by Henry VIII and his contemporaries. The primary feature that connects both courtly and popular carols is that they were all dance-songs: This feature is mentioned in a number of literary references (including the various King Arthur tales), which refer to the courtly carol and sometimes specifically mention dancing accompanied by singing.

Later literary references from the 14th century imply that the carol was primarily a festival song, possibly used for processions, both in the church and as part of secular celebrations in the great halls of the nobility: The various Boar’s Head carols are surviving examples of these. Other examples of the festival carol are songs associated with amorous games. The original carol “The Holly and the Ivy” was one of these; the song as

SEE CAROLS, P. 3

FALL FESTIVAL PRESENTS RICH BLEND OF MUSIC AND PERFORMERS

The day was beautiful; the company delightful; the music exquisite. This describes in brief the wonderful day of music and learning at the 18th Annual Fall Festival of Early Music held at the Boulder Public Library on Saturday, 30 October. The day was filled from start to finish with top-notch performers and presenters on a variety of early music topics in Boulder Public Library’s Canyon Theater. The mixture included a rich blend of professionals, amateurs, and students.

The Festival got underway on Friday evening with Early Music Colorado’s Annual Membership Meeting and a short concert given by Constance Whiteside, one of our featured performers, who previewed several selections on Medieval harp from her Saturday lecture demonstration recital. Despite the fact that no members came to the Membership Meeting and supper, the audience that assemble for the intimate concert welcomed Ms. Whiteside with warm and appreciative applause.

The key presentations on Saturday reached larger audiences than in previous years, thanks to our outreach to other organizations when planning this year’s Festival. We saw new faces from the Classical Guitar Society and the Celtic Harp Society at several of the Saturday Events.

SEE FALL FESTIVAL, P. 2

The Quarterly Volume XVIII, Number 4, Winter 2010/2011

Deborah Kauffman, editor

EMC Board of Directors President Deborah Kauffman Vice President Dan Seger Secretary/Treasurer Debra Throgmorton Membership Peter Schimpf & Evanne Browne

Advisory Board

Jann Benson, Joan Conlon, Melody English, Maria van der Heijde-Zomerdijk, Tamara Meredith,

Anne Marie Morgan

Early Music Colorado is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization that seeks to foster community understanding and enjoyment of the rich variety of music composed and performed prior to the 19th Century. Please visit the website at www.EarlyMusicColorado.org or contact the president at President@EarlyMusic Colorado.org.

PRESIDENT’S TROPE The last weekend of October saw EMC’s Fall

Festival of Early Music. I hear it was a wonderful event; unfortunately, I was not able to be there because of a family emergency in California. I extend my thanks to the other members of the board—Dan Seger, Evanne Browne, Peter Schimpf, and Deb Throgmorton—for picking up where I had to leave off and making the Festival a success. I also thank volunteers Melody English, Mary Scott, and Suzanne and Wayne Angevine for helping man the boutique table. I hope all our members were able to attend and found there something educational, touching, or just plain fun. Planning for such an event takes a while, and we will be starting work on next year’s Festival no doubt in a short time. As always, we welcome feedback and suggestions for what our members would like to see and experience.

Thank you also for those of you who have sent in your membership renewals. Membership donations are one of our largest sources of support. Please let others who are interested in supporting early music know about our organization.

DEBORAH KAUFFMAN, EMC PRESIDENT

FALL FESTIVAL, FROM P. 1 Featured performer Richard Savino’s

lecture/recital on Baroque guitar entertained as well as enlightened the large audience about the history and development of guitar as both solo and continuo instrument; his performances are discussed elsewhere in these pages. Ms. Whiteside’s lecture/recital, “Le Harpe de Melodie: A Harp’s Journey through the 12th to 15th Centuries,” combined her vast historical knowledge of the harp and its literature with a stunning program of French Medieval dance and troubadour music. EMC board member Evanne Browne, soprano, joined Ms. Whiteside on a pair of antiphons written by Hildegarde von Bingen.

Part of EMC’s mission is to offer educational experiences to our members. In this vein, Evanne Browne presented a session titled “Knowing the Score: Working with Original Notation,” in which she used illustration and demonstration to guide the audience through the challenges of reading from facsimile manuscripts as a way of getting closer to the source of the music.

Performance groups are always a part of the Fall Festival, and this year was no exception. Six groups each gave mini-concerts throughout the day on Saturday. Favorites The Renaissance Project and the recorder ensemble Three Plus Two opened the day with varied programs. The Renaissance Project performed choral music mostly from the 16th to 17th centuries with excursions to Gluck and Vaughan Williams, and Three Plus Two covered a similar time frame with recorder music. The high school-aged recorder ensemble Quintessence (students of

SEE FALL FESTIVAL, P. 4

SUE ELLISON, MARK DAVENPORT 2

CAROL, FROM P. 1 we know it today has transformed the original associations of Holly (man) and Ivy (woman). In today’s version, the Ivy is mostly ignored in favor of the Holly and its various physical attributes, which now serve as religious symbols: the white holly blossom is compared to the lily, a symbol of Mary; the red color of the holly berry to blood, a symbol of Jesus’ sacrifice related to communion; the prickly leaves to thorns and bitter bark to gall, both symbols of the Passion.

Even though most of the most of the surviving Medieval carol texts are either religious or morally didactic, they still served as popular songs. Their texts betray a simple style with stock phrases, and their melodies were often taken from familiar popular tunes. In fact, manuscripts often feature a text with no music: only a reference to the name of a popular tune. Even the surviving polyphonic carols, whose music could only come from a more educated population (such as the church or court), may adapt a pre-existing carol melody. Some carols also seem to have been sung to plainchant hymn melodies, since hymns also having strophic structures. Indeed, our present-day “O come, o come Emmanuel” is an adaptation of a Gregorian chant melody, although it is likely that it enetered our repertory through its use in the German Lutheran church, for which Luther adopted some plainchant for his new repertory of chorale melodies.

The earliest polyphonic carols are found in 15th-century manuscripts. Their alternation between verse and refrain (burden) reflects the medieval dance-song practice of leader and chorus (see Example 2 on page 4). Some songs even have two different burdens,

probably one for the leader and one for the chorus. Carols in later Tudor manuscripts often show changes to this traditional form, presenting a shortened form of the opening burden when it reappears at the end of the verses, or even eliminating it altogether after it is presented once at the beginning.

After the English Reformation, the carol changed as new styles in poetry, song, and dance developed. At the same time, their presence in music sources declined, possibly because the monks and friars who had preserved and probably composed them were thrown out of their monasteries by Henry VIII. Pieces called “carols” continued to be included in music sources, but they are typically either motet-like works or lute songs by trained composers—no longer popular songs. The oral transmission of the popular carols no doubt continued, but by nature it is undocumented. Carols declined even more in the 17th century, as Puritan reformers suppressed the kinds of religious celebrations in which carols played an important part. Under the Commonwealth, Christmas celebrations were banned or discouraged, even though many Christmas traditions could not be completely stamped out. After the Restoration, the popular carol tradition revived, with carol texts circulating in broadsheets and their music published in collections. New publications of carols appeared in the 18th century; they not only drew tunes from the oral tradition, they included new songs, often adapted from traditional hymns. These trends continued in the 19th century to form the basis for today’s traditional Christmas carols.

DEBORAH KAUFFMAN

I met a maiden in a place; I kneeled down afore her face And said: Hail, Mary, ful of grace. When the maiden heard tell of this, She was full sore abashed y-wis, And weened that she had done amiss.

Then said the angel; Dread not thou, For ye be conceived with great virtue Whose name shall be called Jesu. Then said the maiden; Verily, I am your servant right truly; Ecce, ancilla Domini.

Example 1. Monophonic Medieval carol, “Nova, nova”

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CAROL, FROM P. 3 Example 2. Polyphonic Medival carol, “Nowell sing we”

De fructu ventris of Mary bright; Both God and man in her alight; Out of disease he did us dight,

Both all and some. Puer natus to us was sent, To bliss us bought, fro bale us blent, And else to woe we had y-went,

Both all and some.

Lux fulgebit with love and light, In Mary mild his pennon pight, In her took kind with manly might,

Both all and some. Gloria tibi ay and bliss; God unto his grace he us wiss, The rent of heaven that we not miss,

Both all and some.

FALL FESTIVAL, FROM P. 2 Linda Lunbeck) performed a program of 16th- to early-18th-century works with notable maturity and command of their instruments. They shared the hour with Another Colorado Viol Consort, who played a set of 17th-century viol trios by Jenkins, Purcell, and Lawes.

Colleges were represented as well with ensembles from Metropolitan State College of Denver and Regis University. The Metro State Early Music Ensemble admirably performed music from William Lawes’s The Triumph of Peace (1634), and the Regis Collegium Musicum performed a beautiful set of songs and dances by William Byrd. The Metro State ensemble, directed by EMC board member Peter Schimpf, has been in existence for only three years. Its purpose is to involve students in performances of the music they study in music history, but with which they may not have had experience. The Regis ensemble is in its ninth year and combines students and community members in a collaborative experience.

While all this good music was happening, a Menagerie of Early Instruments was set up in the Canyon Gallery, to give attendees an “up-close-and-personal” experience with a wide variety of instruments not often seen, let alone played. Our thanks go to those who shared their instruments with us: Sue Ellison, who returned a second year with even more instruments from her unique collection; William Adams, whose knowledge and ability to build instruments is incredibly deep; and Peter Schimpf, who displayed and demonstrated several lutes. EMC also thanks Juliette Bartsch, Director of Concerts at Boulder Public Library, and the Library Foundation for supporting EMC’s Festival of Early Music.

DAN SEGER

BOARD MEMBER PETER SCHIMF

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SOUNDTRACKS The Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado

has released their debut CD, Cornucopia, featuring concertos by English composer Charles Avison, Handel, and Telemann. Visit their website for order information. e

The Quintessence Recorder Ensemble's performance at the Fall Festival was, sadly, their swan song. As teenagers, Liesl Jensen (14), Cambria Heuston (15) and Ariel Branz (18)—recorder students of Linda Lunbeck—have ever-increasing demands placed on their busy lives. We can look forward, however to some of their performances on YouTube early next year. e

Ariel Branz (18) has been selected as one of four finalists in Piffaro's Young Recorder Players Competition; she will travel to Philadelphia in late January to perform in the competition concert as well as do some informal music-making with the other finalists and members of Piffaro. e

Ariel’s teacher, Linda Lunbeck, is looking forward to performing with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado in their January (Venice and Versailles) and March (New World Baroque) concerts. e

Rebecca Beshore introduced the Denver ARS chapter to Rachel Ingraham and Erik Mason of Colorado Sacred Harp Singings, who explained the nuts and bolts of shape-note singing and led the chapter in singing and playing. e

For anyone interested in singing and learning about Gregorian chant, Gerald Holbrook is staring a community Gregorian Chant Choir for Women & Men. No previous experience needed. Learn as you sing! Rehearsals will be on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 6:50 PM in the youth choir room upstairs at First United Methodist Church. First rehearsal will be January 5th. For further information, contact Gerald at mawaka@aol.com, or 970-217-5966. e

Send your Early Music news to newsletter@EarlyMusicColorado.org.

RICHARD SAVINO HEADLINES FALL FESTIVAL This year’s Fall Festival was headlined by Baroque

and early Classical guitarist Richard Savino, who presented both an afternoon lecture and a full evening program with guest violinist Lina Bahn. Savino’s afternoon lecture was a whirlwind 500-year history of the guitar and its various relatives. Mixing humor, erudition, and a distincitive New York City edginess, Savino discussed the evolution of guitar and lute tuning, technique, and repertoire while demonstrating on a variety of early instruments (a Baroque guitar, a theorbo, a vihuela, etc.) strewn about the stage. It was an ideal appetizer for the evening’s concert, which featured as broad and diverse a program as the lecture.

For the evening concert, the Fall Festival moved from the Boulder Public Library to St. John’s Episcopal Church just a few blocks away. The program, titled “Virtuosi d'Italia: The Art of the Baroque & Early Classical Guitar,” focused on the contribution of Italian composers to the guitar’s repertoire. Savino played the first half of the concert on a 5 double-course Baroque guitar and presented works by Pelligrini, Roncalli, and Santiago de Murcia (the only non-Italian composer on the program). Between each work, Savino discussed the unique features of each piece and the historical and political context from which these works were created. The first half concluded with an anonymous set of variations on La Folia, a commonly used repeating harmonic and melodic pattern used as a basis for improvisation in the 17th and 18th centuries. He was joined by violinist Lina Bahn, whose dazzling virtuosity brought the first half of the concert to a thrilling close.

After intermission, Savino and Bahn presented yet another set of variations on La Folia by renown guitar composer Mauro Giuliani, this time on an early 19th-century, 6-string single-course “classical” guitar. While tuned the same as a modern classical guitar, the 19th-century replica is a smaller, gut-strung instrument with a distinctively different timbre. With the anonymous La Folia still fresh in our ears, the Giuliani variations provided a fascinating point of stylistic comparison. After a solo guitar sonata by Ferdinando Carulli, the program concluded with Niccolo Paganini’s Sonata Concertante for violin and guitar. Just as his lecture had taken the audience from the Renaissance to the modern age, so too did the program connect the world of “Early Music” to the familiar common practice period.

PETER SCHIMPF 5

PO Box 19078 Boulder, CO 80308-2078

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2011 SOIRÉES TO KICK OFF IN FEBRUARY Early Music Colorado is continuing its series of

musical soirées devoted to providing performing opportunities for our members and their early music groups. Each soirée will present 4 or 5 groups, performing short programs of pieces of their choosing. In addition to good music, enjoy refreshments and good company (networking is absolutely encouraged!).

Our first Soirée of Early Music of the season is scheduled for Saturday evening, February 26, 7:30 pm, at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, 2000 S. Lemay, Fort Collins.

Performing groups will be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis. If you are interested in performing, please fill out the request form found on the EMC website. If you submit the form less than 3 weeks before the scheduled date, please email a scanned copy to President(at)EarlyMusicColorado.org.

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