Newsletter of the Viola da Gamba
Society - New England
The Newsletter of the Viola da Gamba Society New England is
published quarterly, and contains information about upcoming
workshops, concerts, events, and other information useful to the
Viola da Gamba player and Early Music enthusiast. Included are
often listings of instruments, music, bows etc for sale, as well
as opportunities for players to get together and enjoy making the
music they love.
Click on the PDF edition of the
Newsletter you wish to see, or page down for the text version.
Winter 2010
Fall 2009
March 2009
December 2008
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Please submit reviews, previews, listings, articles, stories,
poetry, columns to the Newsletter Editor at NewsletterEditor@vdgsne.org
VdGS-NE
Newsletter - Winter 2010
PRESIDENT’S LETTER
A Happy New Year to viol players and friends, one and all!
The first workshop of our
2009-2010 year, under the direction of Laura Jeppesen and
Wendy Gillespie, was a great success. Held at Wellesley College
and featuring Wellesley alumnae and faculty, this gala event also
partnered with Amherst Early Music’s fall workshop,
and included a magnificent concert on the Sunday evening after
the Saturday workshop. The music, which participants worked
on during the workshop and then heard performed, had a
woman-centered focus, with texts including Petrarch’s
elaborate elevenpart “Vergine bella”, the anonymous
“Une jeune fillette,” the well-known “Susanne
un jour,” and other delectations.
Looking ahead, on Saturday,
February 20, 2010, Alison Crum and the Rose Consort (Alison
Crum, Roy Marks, Ibi Aziz and John Bryan) will present a workshop
on the works of Ferrabosco the Elder. His oeuvre includes
motets, madrigals and instrumental pieces, of which we will be
sampling as much as is possible in a single day. As his
compositions are much less commonly played and available
than those of his son, Ferrabosco II, this workshop provides a
unique, first-time opportunity to experience this
composer’s music. Ferrabosco was respected and emulated in
his time; his name is mentioned alongside Byrd, Marenzio
and other greats of his day.
The Rose Consort will also
be presenting a concert, on Friday, February 19, at Lindsay
Chapel, First Church, Congregational in Cambridge. The concert,
as well as a pre-concert lecture by John Bryan, will look at the
Italian influence on Renaissance English music.
On Saturday, May 8, 2010,
we will be holding our spring workshop at Hancock Church in
Lexington. The workshop, organized by Martins Aldins and
Hannah Davidson and presented by A Joyful Noyse (directed by
Martins Aldins), will look at seventeenth-century German
music for voices and viols. Other faculty will include
Pamela Dellal, Jane Hershey and Lisle Kulbach. Works by Augustin
Pfleger, Heinrich Schutz, Christan Geist, Franz Tunder and
Dietrich Buxtehude will form the basis for the workshop.
Once again, our memberships
run from September to August; there is still time to join for
the 2009-2010 year if you have not already done so. (Check
the date on your mailing label to see whether your membership is
up to date.) Thank you to those who have renewed, and
especially to those who have made contributions of any
kind. We cannot continue without you!
Hannah Davidson
- President@vdgsne.org
ALISON CRUM’S NEW BOOK
Alison’s newly published book, The Viol
Rules, will be for sale during the workshop on February 20, 2010. More
details of this book can be seen on her own website –
The Viol Rules
SILBIGER GRANT SUPPORTS CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICE
This
year’s Silbiger award-winning ensemble, under the
leadership of Sarah Mead, joined singers of St. Paul’s
Episcopal Church in Natick, led by Monique Weiss Byrnes,
Director of Music and organist, in a late-night holiday service.
The central musical event was a performance of the
“Christmas Story” by Heinrich Schütz with the
very capable baritone Ron Williams singing the demanding part of
the Evangelist. Sarah Mead had arranged the instrumental
parts from Schütz’ orchestra of twenty to fit a viol
quartet with two sackbuts and two recorders. Sarah, Hannah
Davidson, Patrick Ramsey, and Mai-Lan Broekman were the
viol players; Mack Ramsey and Brian Kay played sackbut, and
Patrick and Mack took the recorder parts.
Sarah
used a variety of sources to create the instrumental realization
for small consort. The choir owned a version in English
with piano reduction; also available were a continuo
edition of the recitatives, and the version in the collected
works with reconstructed parts. Sarah had to deal with the
fact that there would be no trumpets, but fortunately her sackbut
players could play various instruments including the voices
which would have been taken by trumpets. Mai-Lan’s violone
grounded the instrumental group and Sarah, who played
pardessus in some movements, comments that it may be unique
to have an ensemble including the lowest and the highest members
of the viol family.
—Martha Davidson
EARLY MUSIC WEEK AT WORLD FELLOWSHIP CENTER
The
best kept secret among Early Music players is the splendid,
relaxing-butchallenging Early Music Week at the World
Fellowship Center by Mount Chocorua in Conway, N.H. Now heading
for its 16th year (June 23 – July 2, 2010), it offers an
excellent faculty for gamba, recorder, harpsichord, voice
and lute. Children attend all-morning play groups while
their parents attend classes. Swimming is a short walk to Whitten
Pond (a loon sanctuary) or a short drive to Lake Chocorua. Meals
are of delicious local organic food, much of it grown on
site. Country dance takes place on several evenings. The faculty
concert is always extraordinary – as is the annual
lecture.
What an ideal way to begin
the summer, as we can form informal groups, experiment with
new (old) music, make new friends, and do as much or little
as we wish in a beautiful setting— the perfect musical
getaway. Come join the feast!
For more information on the
Early Music Week program contact Larry Wallach at
larry@simons-rock.edu, or 413-528-9065, or Jane Hershey at
hershey@blakeville.mv.com or 603-899-5036. Any questions about
accommodations can be directed to Andrea Walsh at
reservations@worldfellowship.org, call 603-447-2280; check the website at www.worldfellowship.org
—Louise Botero, Alexandra Hawley, Kathy Keleher, Tom Kurz
CAMBRIDGE SOCIETY FOR EARLY MUSIC SERIES
The ravishing sounds of three viols
in consort will transport you to the world of the
Renaissance English court. Their starting point is the
extraordinary manuscript that preserves works by King Henry
himself, his court musicians and the continental composers who
influenced them. A feast for the ears, from haunting chansons
to astonishingly complex polyphony, this is elegant and
exhilarating music that is off the beaten path.
Concert Dates:
- Thursday, January 14, 8:00 PM at First Religious Society, 27 School Street, Carlisle MA 01741
- Friday, January 15, 8:00 PM at Weston Congregational Church, 130 Newton Street, Weston MA 02493
- Saturday, January 16, 8:00 PM at Salem Athenaeum, 337 Essex Street, Salem MA 01879
- Sunday, January 17, 4:00 PM at Heard House Museum, 54 Main Street Ipswich MA 01938
- Monday, January 18, 7:39 PM at Christ Church, Zero Garden Street, Cambridge MA 02138
WAS ALFONSO FERRABOSCO I A SPY?
The Inquisition certainly believed
him to be a spy for Queen Elizabeth, as seen in the letters
transcribed in Richard Charteris’s 1984 “Biographical
calendar.” Writing in the New Grove Dictionary of 1980 John
Cockshoot asserts that the continued rumors in the positive
are unfounded, but by 1992 Joseph Kerman writes as if there is no
question that Ferrabosco undertook diplomatic missions at least
and probably clandestine acts as well, including carrying
salaries for the Italian agents of spymaster William Cecil, Lord
Burghley. The letters in Richard Charteris’s calendar read
like the framework for a swashbuckling adventure story.
Ferrabosco escaped from Italy without permission of his
employer or the Pope, going to England where he, a
nineteen-year-old, was immediately taken on as a musician to
Queen Elizabeth. He was active planning masques, currying
favor with noblemen, and interpreting for the Venetian
embassy in London, returning several times to Italy, finally
without the Queen’s permission, at which point she held his
two young children hostage and refused to release them even
after repeated requests including a letter from the French queen
mother Catherine de’ Medici. The Inquisition succeeded in
incarcerating Ferrabosco, either in Bologna or in Rome, for
a number of months, after which he entered the service of the
Duke of Savoy, traveling with him to Spain but never again to
England. He died in 1588 at the age of forty-five.
—Martha Davidson
RENTAL VIOLS AVAILABLE AT POWERS MUSIC SCHOOL
Trebles, tenors, basses all available
for rental from Powers. Call 617-484-4696 between 10:00 AM
and 5:00 PM and ask for Evan for more details, or contact Evan
via email at
Registrar@powersmusic.org. You can also
contact Jane Hershey, viol teacher at Powers, 603-899-5036
Rental fee is $300/yr, also available for 6 months term at $150.
Seeking: cases in good condition for basses and tenors for Powers
collection. If you have a hard viol case in storage that you want to
get rid of, please consider donating it to the Powers Music School. Our
instruments are in good shape, but some cases need replacing.
BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL CONCERT:
“The Golden Age of the Viola da Gamba and the Lute,” with Vittorio Ghielmi, Viola da Gamba and Luca Pianca Lute.
Friday, February 26, 2010, 8 PM, First Church in Cambridge, Congregational
| VDGS-NE Officers: |
|
|
| Hannah
Davidson |
: |
President |
| Rosalind
Brooks Stowe |
: |
Vice-President |
| Susan
Potter |
: |
Recording Secretary |
| Martha
Davidson |
: |
Corresponding Secretary |
| Sybil
Kevy |
: |
Treasurer |
| Lari
Smith |
: |
Newsletter Editor |
| Sarah
Mead |
: |
Brandeis Liason |
| VDGS-NE Board Members: |
: |
Betsy Bayer, Mai-Lan
Broekman, Suzanne Cleverdon, Phyllis
Klein,
June Matthews, Jon Prichard, Peter Tourin, Jean Twombly,
Na’ama Yacoby |
| Past Presidents: |
: |
Joan Boorstein, Martha
Davidson, Michael Hamill, Tracy Hoover,
Ruth Markowitz, Chester Pearlman |
Are you trying to sell a viol or
bow? Listings are
free! Send them to the NewsletterEditor@vdgsne.org
and be assured that many people will see your
item for sale! If your item has sold, please be sure to
inform the newsletter editor. Please note: Your
listing, as well as others, may be seen on the Bulletin Board
of the VdGS-NE
Website, found Here.
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