Musicke In The Ayre: Crafted Consonances
A timely repeat for our programme show-casing the talents of the early-music group, Musicke in the Ayre, in advance of their concert, Time Stands Still, at the Holburne Museum, Bath, on 22 October, at 13:10
Today’s Classical Break consists
mostly of a sequence of recordings from a concert – Crafted Consonances - held in the Augustan gallery of the Holburne
Museum. This very enjoyable concert of
early music was given on Sunday, February the 24th, as part of a
series, Painted Pomp’, by Helen Atkinson and Din Ghani, of the
group, Musicke In The Ayre. The music
consisted mostly of lute- or viol-accompanied song by Elizabethan-born Jacobean
composers.
In the deepened, almost animated presence of
paintings by artists such as Gainsborough, Kauffmann, Zoffany, Ramsay and others, one heard something of the readily
communicable soul of music of a time earlier than the Age of Reason and balance. One stepped further back still, to a legendary time of heroic warriors,
courtiers, poets and musicians; of circles of influence, conspiracy and
patronage, when religion, conscience and philosophy ran in complex strata best kept
hidden from spies and enemies; a time of fate and pastoral dreams written by
urban politicians, personal fortunes worthy of Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s
tragedies, comedies and romances, inward
and outward exploration, the passing of Gloriana and accession of the Stuart
King James The First.
Music and poetry (unlike in the 18th
Century) fell into in the most natural and expressive relationship of moods of
the moment. Ancient voices sang of love and
grief, declarations and mortality, in thrall to harmony; applause might have come
from Bath’s Georgian and Regency heyday:
but at an historical hour, both voices – one voice, Helen Atkinson’s,
that is – and applause were actually of our 21st Century. Music has always been in the air – and the soul
of man and of his forebears and descendants will always be most potently
expressed by it. Its tremulous vibrations,
in songs of life and the collective yet refined spirit, awake and converse with
the world – the catgut and vocal cords are frail with distance and yet not only
speak but reply to our silence; there
are no questions for us to answer. Here
are 40 minutes of this illumination:
Musick In The Ayre’s concert, Crafted
Consonances. Our thanks go to the
performers, Helen Atkinson and Din Ghani, whose talents are here properly
enshrined, but are also aired frequently and to the same effect in York, Oxford
and London.
CONCERT
A poem written by Mike Burrows
from several rows back, on the day! -
At Music In The Ayre – A Crafted
Consonance
The voice and lutes! – and let
their sober song
Be of an unkindness and barren
sorrow
Of my durance in this most cruel
wrong
That will not hear unless I do
borrow
Such voices of harmony that have
sprung
From the hearts of her preferred
men: but still,
Delights freed from throats and
frets made true strung
Prove, man or instrument, we bear
goodwill.
Such love as this let her so hear
and find
Aright our truth of sincere
expression –
And let us not languish, as to
her mind
And heart our tones reach, and
supercession
Comes not late, indeed, but when
that it should,
As, moved, she meets our lowered
state with all good.(The Musician’s, or My Lord Essex’s, Fond Complaint - Written at the Holburne Museum, Sunday 24th of February 2013)
That was Crafted Consonances - a concert given as part of the Season devoted
to Jacobean music, Painted Pomp, held
at the Holburne Museum, Bath, earlier
this year. The performers were Helen
Atkinson and Din Ghani, two members of the early music group, Musicke In The
Ayre.
Now, here are Edmund Rubbra’s Improvizations On Virginal Pieces By Giles
Farnaby, For Orchestra, Op50. These were written to offset costs of
publishing Rubbra’s First Symphony! They
form a work that is, in fact, far from being a pot-boiler. Farnaby (1560-1640), was born in Truro and
died in London. He composed, to a large
extent, pieces for keyboard instruments – for performance in the stately home
or town-house! – and, in contrast to this preoccupation - madrigals. Much of his output is now held in the US. Rubbra, a symphonist of the highest
seriousness, and greatly inspired by the liturgical music and polyphony of the Mediaeval and Renaissance
Ages, expanded Farnaby’s miniatures concinnately
– that is, in a style appropriate to the originals – and orchestrated them with
great care; his technique creating a palette of great beauty; these affectionate
part-recompositions are deeply expressive, their moods ranging from the playful
and capricious, to the wistful and grave.The scoring favours high to alto woodwind
and the middle register of the string section (the violas lend dignity and an austere
quality to more solemn measures). The
brass are light and mildly riotous or more sombre.
Rubbra permitted himself the greatest freedom in
treating the penultimate and last pieces,
Loth to Depart and Tell me, Daphne, as
these were popular songs arranged by Farnaby, rather than original works. The names of the movements are:
Farnaby’s Conceit,His Dreame, His
Humour, Loth To depart, Tell me, Daphne.
This was Classical Break, and I’m
Rupert Kirkham. Today’s number was
researched by Mike Burrows, and we wish to thank Helen Atkinson and Din Ghani
of Musicke In The Ayre for the beautiful performance-material from their
concert at the Holburne Museum earlier this year, which formed the major part
of our programme. We hope you enjoyed it
and will join us again soon. Goodbye!
Improvisations On Virginal Pieces by Giles Farnaby, Op 50, Rubbra
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