Ancient Airs and Dances – September 14 2024
The guest artists for this concert do not use written notes; instead, they prefer to talk directly with their audiences about the works they perform as their concerts proceed so we not have written program notes for this concert. Instead, they have provided a detailed history of the instruments used in the concert:
ABOUT THE INSTRUMENTS
Bagpipe
Mindy Rosenfeld’s bagpipe is a copy of a set of German small pipes (also called a Hümmelchen, meaning “little bumblebee”) that was depicted and described in Michael Praetorius’s Syntagma Musicum of 1619. A relatively quiet-sounding instrument, it is particularly suitable for playing with quieter instruments (even the lute!) and for making music indoors (unlike the Scottish Highland pipes!). Mindy’s set of pipes is mouth-blown (differing from bellows-driven or “cold wind” pipes), has a six-holed chanter (for playing melodies), and has two C drones which sound an octave apart. It can play nine notes!
Cittern
The cittern is a wire-strung, plucked, wooden instrument—resembling a modern banjo—with a flat back and belly. Like the banjo it has a “re-entrant” tuning in which the pitches of the individual strings (nine, arranged into four courses) do not proceed strictly from low to high. Mark Cudek uses the “English” tuning, which consists of (from bass to treble) a descending major 3rd, an ascending perfect 5th, and an ascending major 2nd or whole step.
The cittern flourished throughout Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and was especially popular in the British Isles. It was used to play folk music and accompany ballads, and it was often depicted hanging on the walls of barbershops, for the use of clients waiting to have either their hair cut or their blood drawn (barbers were also surgeons). Occasionally, it was employed in more sophisticated musical settings, especially as a member of the “broken” or “English” consort and there is a sizable solo repertoire existing in both manuscripts and publications.
The word “cittern” comes from the Greek “kithara,” which described a stringed instrument, related to the lyre, that was closely associated with the god Apollo. This is a manifestation of the Renaissance interest in drawing parallels between the culture of that time and the culture of classical antiquity.
Flute and Fife
Archaeologists have unearthed flutes that are thousands of years old. More recently—500 years ago in Renaissance Europe—flutes were made of wood and constructed in a simple manner with a cylindrical bore (internal air passage), six finger holes, and one hole for the player to blow across. Flutes of the Renaissance, like most other instruments of the time, were made in different sizes, from treble to bass.
By the year 1700, the instrument we call the “Baroque” flute (having a conical bore and one key, constructed with joints to facilitate precise tuning) had been developed. The commonly used flute of the Baroque (often called in musical sources the “traverso,” “German flute,” or “la flute d’Allemagne” to differentiate it from the recorder) evolved from the tenor-sized D flute of the Renaissance. Over 150 years this instrument became, through the addition of keys and the change of basic material, the modern concert flute (usually made of silver or other precious metals).
Although the fife looks like a flute, it has a separate identity. It is a special category of high-pitched flute that has always been associated with music needing a loud, somewhat shrill sound to be heard outdoors or in noisy situations. Accordingly, it was and still is used by the military and in traditional folkdance bands. The fife has always been made of wood and never had any keys.
Lute
In the Renaissance era, the lute was the most popular instrument in the Western world, the symbol of the magic and power of music. At one level, it was the instrument of kings and queens, playing the sublime music of great composers. But it was also heard in the theatre in the incidental music of Shakespeare’s plays. And it was heard by common people, playing the popular tunes of the day in pubs and on street corners.
The lute is a descendant of the Arabic oud, which traveled into Europe during the time of the Crusades. From the beginning, the lute had a pear-shaped body, a rounded back made of separate strips of wood, and a bent-back pegbox.
By the 15th century a fifth course was added to the lute, and by the end of that century, six courses were common. They were tuned to the intervals 4th, 4th, major 3rd, 4th, 4th. But the actual pitch would vary depending on the size of the lute. A common tuning instruction of the time was “tune the treble string as high as it will go without breaking, then tune the remaining strings in accordance with the first.”
Around the end of the 15th century, lute players began to abandon the plectrum (a small, flat tool for plucking the strings) and pluck with their fingertips. This made it possible to play two, three, or even four lines of music simultaneously. With this revolution in playing technique, the lute’s potential for expressivity and shading with delicate nuances of color were revealed, and its popularity increased dramatically. The lute became the perfect solo instrument for that age, as well as an ideal accompaniment for the voice and a regular member of ensembles.
Along with the new fingertip style of playing, a new form of notation for the lute began to appear. This “lute tablature” was ideally suited for the technique of the instrument. Rather than representing the pitches to be played, lute tablature shows the lute player where to place the fingers on the fingerboard to produce those pitches.
Thousands of lute solos and lute songs were published or copied into manuscripts during the 16th century. Many of these were intended for the blossoming numbers of amateur lutenists, who learned to play, and often sing, to the lute. Great composers such as Francesco da Milano and John Dowland amazed, moved, and transported their listeners with virtuoso playing and profound compositions.
By the end of the 16th century additional bass courses had become common. Lutes with seven or eight courses became the norm. And early in the 17th century, the 10-course lute was established.
France took the lead in the lute’s development in the 17th century. French lutenists established a repertory of lute solos based on stylized dances. They experimented with a variety of alternate tunings to create new sonorities, and by midcentury they had settled on a new lute tuning of 11 courses. This new “D minor tuning” was the basis for all the French and German lute music that followed in the 17th and 18th centuries.
By the 18th century the lute’s greatest popularity and place of development had shifted to Germany. Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687–1750) towered over all other lutenists of the Baroque with his virtuoso playing and sublime compositions. He developed creative, idiomatic ways of using the lute’s fingerboard and left the largest body of lute music of any composer in history. His compositions are some of the most deeply beautiful of any music written for this instrument. Weiss added two more courses to the bass register of the lute, creating a 13-course lute. He also straightened the bent back pegbox to create a “swan neck” design for the bass strings. This gave the bass more power and resonance.
In the 19th century, the lute dropped completely out of use. It was eventually resurrected by an interest in music of earlier times that began to blossom in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The virtuoso guitarist and lutenist Julian Bream (1933–2023) did much to enlighten listeners about the emotional depth and dazzling fireworks of Elizabethan lute music.
The Early Music movement of the late 20th century saw a new generation of lutenists dedicated to rediscovering the old performance practices. The tremendous beauty, variety, and color of Renaissance and Baroque lute music can now be heard in their performances. And the amazing musical flexibility of the lute is revealed through new compositions, written in a variety of styles. After 200 years of neglect, the future of the lute once again looks bright.
Viol
Also known by its Italian name, viola da gamba (da gamba means “played on the leg”), this type of bowed instrument flourished between 1500 and 1750. It evolved in Spain as a hybrid of the vihuela, a native plucked string instrument shaped like a guitar but tuned like a lute, and the rebab, a Moorish bowed instrument played in the vertical position. It normally had six gut strings.
From Spain, the viol migrated to Italy and thence spread to Northern Europe in the early 16th century. It experienced a golden age in both consort and solo music in England between about 1540 and 1690 and was also extremely popular in France in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The instrument fell from use in the late 18th century, partly because of the French Revolution (it was associated with the salons of aristocracy and royalty), and partly because of the ascendancy of the violin family, whose instruments had greater carrying power in the larger public concert halls that were then becoming common.
