PETRARCA - THE MUSICIANS' POET

Sunday, October 7, 2012, 4:00 PM
Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University
$15 ($10 students and seniors)

Medieval and Renaissance choral settings of texts of the celebrated Italian poet Petrarca (d. 1374, known in English as Petrarach), by Jacobo da Bologna, DuFay, Willaert, Lasso, Marenzio, and Monteverdi.

To the right: Petrarch, as portrayed by his contemporary, the painter Altichiero, in a fresco at the Oratorio of St. George, in Padua, Italy. The fresco depicts Petrarch as one of the spectators at a legendary event, the baptism of King Sevio by St. George in the third century. Petrarch lived the last part of his life near Padua.

ADVENT - CHRISTMAS - EPIPHANY

Sunday, December 16, 2012, 4:00 PM
Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, 5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt
$15 ($10 students and seniors)

Renaissance and Baroque choral settings and organ preludes for the season(s), including selections from the Missa Noe Noe of Jacques Arcadeldt (d. 1568) and works of Schütz,Tallis, Hassler, Isaac, and others.

The painting to the left is one of at least three versions of The Adoration of the Magi, by Geergen tot Sint Jans, done in the Netherlands around 1490. At that time the composer Heinrich Isaacs, whose Rorate coeli desuper is on this program, was about 40 years old. The painting is at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

GREATEST HITS OF THE ARS NOVA

Sunday, January 13, 2013, 4:00 PM
Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, 5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt
$15 ($10 students and seniors)

A concert by Schola's instrumental consort, Gamba Obscura, Alexander Rakov, Director

Barry Torres (countertenor)
Alexander Rakov (vielle, fidels, Medieval lute, psaltery)
Alex Korolov (fidels, Medieval lute)
Tom Klenck (bass fidel)
Kate Cushing (psaltery, fidel)

Gherardello da Firenze (d. 1362/3): Una columba

Guillaume de Machaut (d. 1377): Sans cuer, dolens; Il m'est avis qu'il n'est dons de nature; Plus dure que un dyamant; Quant j'ay l'espart

Jacopo da Bologna (d. 1386): O cieco mondo; Fenice fu; Nel mio parlar

Francesco Landini (d. 1397): Non avra ma' pieta; De! Dimmi tu

Johannes Ciconia (d. 1412): Gloria; O felix templum jubila; Petrum Marcello venetum; Le ray au soleyl

The makers of the instruments that will be played in this concert include Tom Klenck (bass fidel), Alexander Rakov (fidels), Larry Brown (Medieval lute), and Derwood Crocker of Aurora, New York (fidels, psalteries).

Above, right: A contemporary allegorical depiction of Nature offering the French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut three of her children: Sense, Rhetoric and Music. Machaut (d. 1377) was famous in his own time for his large output of poetry -- mostly in the courtly love tradition -- as well as for his musical works. Musically he, like the other composers on this program, exemplified the Ars Nova-- new technique -- of the fourteenth century, which applied rhythmic innovations and greater polyphonic complexity to musical settings of both secular and sacred texts.
To read further:
http://www.nvcc.edu/home/jwulff/machaut/machaut.htm
http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/personal/portfolio/224paper3.html
To listen:
Je vivroie liement (performed by the Swedish ensemble Falsobordone)
Agnus Dei from Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame (sung by L'ensemble Gilles Binchois)

PEACE AND LOVE

Sunday, April 28, 2013, 7:00 PM
Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, 5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt
$15 ($10 students and seniors)

A second performance will take place in Elmira, New York on Sunday, May 4, at 7:30 p.m., at Grace Church, 375 West Church St., as part of the series "Music at Grace." Schola baritone Gerald Wolff is organist and music director at Grace Church.

The program features great Renaissance choral works on commemorations both public and private - treaties and marriages - including Du Fay's Missa Se la face ay pale and Isaac's Virgo prudentissima.

It was probably in the 1430s that Guillaume Du Fay (a composer of pop songs as well as of sacred music) wrote a ballade that became very popular in the courts of Europe, Se la face ay pale. Its topic was the pain of unrequited love:

If pale be my mien
It's that love is my bane....

Fool am I, in vain
to wait, and not turn
To one where devotion
Might yield some return;
But if pain's not my notion,
I can't do without her.

It was likely around 1450 that Du Fay recycled his by-then-familiar tune as the central melodic theme of his great mass of the same name. In 2000-2001, Schola Cantorum of Syracuse recorded both the ballade and the mass. Click here for a description and audio samples of that performance.

CANTARE E SONARE, BONUM EST

Saturday, June 15, 2013, 8:00 PM
Pebble Hill Presbyterian Church, 5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt
$15 ($10 students and seniors)

Schola's instrumental ensemble Gamba Obscura plays four-viol versions of music originally composed for voices, by Cipriano, Brumel, Cima and Gabrieli, as well as
* pavins by Tomkins and Jenkins
* tidbits by Maschera, Cima, and Gabrieli
* fantasias by Mico, Gibbons and Ferrabosco.

(This is a change in program from what was previously announced.)