18 March 2021 Music on Thursdays Online: Music for the Lute

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Thursday 18th March 2021

Music for the Lute Family of Instruments

Performers:

Alexandra Polarczyk, soprano
Ensemble Céladon: Paulin Bündgen, artistic director & countertenor
Clara Coutouly, soprano • Nolwenn Le Guern, fiddle & rebab • Florent Marie, medieval lute
Gwénaël Bihan, recorder • Ludwin Bernaténé, drums
La Molla: Corina Marti, recorder • Michał Gondko, lute
VivaBiancaLuna Biffi, voice & fiddle • Marc Mauillon, voice
Israel Golani, lute
Iestyn Davies, countertenor • Thomas Dunford, lute
Christopher Morrongiello, lute
Lute Legend Ensemble: Bassam Bishara, oud • Wen Zhao, pipa • Lucas Harris, lute

Guest Host: Lynda Chang

Available: Thursday 18th March

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Music for the Lute, Archlute, or Theorbo

Programme

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)       9m15
    1 O pastor animarum    O Shepherd of our souls
    2 O virtus sapientie    O Wisdom's energy
    3 Ave Maria    Hail Mary

Alexandra Polarczyk, soprano, with shruti box, and saz

Beranguier de Palazol (fl 1160-1209)    5m15
Tan m'abelis So much I love

Ensemble Céladon: Paulin Bündgen, artistic director & countertenor
Clara Coutouly, soprano • Nolwenn Le Guern, fiddle & rebab
Florent Marie, medieval lute • Gwénaël Bihan, recorder • Ludwin Bernaténé, drums

Guillaume de Machaut (c1300 - 1377)        2m50
Douce Dame Jolie    Sweet, pretty Lady

La Molla: Corina Marti, flet prosty (recorder)
Michał Gondko, lutnia (lute) • VivaBiancaLuna Biffi, śpiew, fidel (voice & fiddle)
Marc Mauillon, śpiew (voice)

Francesco (Canova) da Milano (1497-1543)        3m25
aka Francesco da Parigi, Il Divino
La Compagna - Ricercare (or fantasia)

Israel Golani, lute

John Dowland (1653-1726)

Flow my Tears        4m40

Iestyn Davies, countertenor • Thomas Dunford, lute

Lachrimae    (c1590s)                5m00

Christopher Morrongiello, lute

Eric Clapton (b1945)     3m05
Tears in Heaven (1991)

Iestyn Davies, countertenor • Thomas Dunford, lute

Longa Yorgu (Turkish traditional) 1m25

Lute Legend Ensemble, of Toronto, Canada
Bassam Bishara, oud • Wen Zhao, pipa • Lucas Harris, lute

Concert duration: 40 minutes

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recorded 'as live' by professional musicians

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What is a lute ?

Greetings - I hope you are keeping well out there.

This is just one of the joys of belonging to the Leatherhead Concert and Arts Society - I get to look into subjects which I know nothing about, immerse myself in fascinating discoveries, and then share some of my findings with you.

Those of you who are lute aficionados, please look away now. I am most definitely not speaking as an expert, merely an enthusiastic advocate who has caught a glimpse of something very special.

The history of the lute is the story of a musical journey through the medieval, renaissance and baroque eras.

When the 'lute' was first mentioned, I wasn't even quite sure what it looked like, so here's a generic picture for you:

From now on, every time I look at old paintings that feature musical instruments, I will be looking harder than ever for the lute and its many cousins.

That exquisite tear-drop shape produces a delicate, resonant tone, making it extremely popular either as a solo instrument, as accompaniment for dance / voice, or in a consort (ensemble).

Its origin was the Turkish 'oud' - a similar pear-shaped and often elaborately decorated plucked string instrument that arrived in Europe around 8th century when the Moors conquered the Iberian peninsula. From there, it spread to France, influenced the French troubadours and eventually spread across the whole of Europe. The main difference between an oud and a lute is that the former is played with a long quill which restricted it to single notes only.

The gradual realisation that the lute could be played by the finger tips instead of a plectrum meant that it instantly became more than just a melodic instrument. The ability for several notes (chords) to be 'plucked' at the same time made possible the transition from homophony (one note at a time) to polyphony (many notes at a time). The number of 'courses' (double strings) on a lute grew over time, as did the length of its neck to accommodate ever-longer strings that increased the range of its sounds.

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Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), German visionary, abbess, writer, philosopher, musician and all-round polymath, enjoyed something of a revival following the release of the 1983 album, A Feather on the Breath of God. Her increasing popularity coincided with the rise of feminism and a universal quest for spirituality. There are now hundreds of recordings of her music.

Perhaps it was her famous visions that led to the writing of her sensual, vivid and lyrical songs. Here are three 'prayers' sung by soprano Alexandra Polarczyk, accompanying herself alternately on the shruti box (a bellows instrument) and the saz (a long necked lute). The performance is indeed spiritual and other-worldly.

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Troubadours were travelling musicians around the 12th and 13th centuries who sang about chivalry and courtly love.

Here is a marvellous performance by just such a group of modern minstrels, Ensemble Celadon, made up of two singers accompanied by four instruments - fiddle, lute, recorder and percussion. This excerpt was recorded in the atmospheric 13th century church of Notre-Dame de Centeilles in southern France, to the north-east of Carcassonne. The natural setting and rustic clothing authentically evoke the image of such musicians travelling the country entertaining local villagers with their poetry and songs.

Beranguier de Palazol (fl 1160-1209) 5m15
Tan m'abelis So much I love

Ensemble Céladon:
Paulin Bündgen, artistic director & countertenor
Clara Coutouly, soprano
Nolwenn Le Guern, fiddle & rebab
Florent Marie, medieval lute
Gwénaël Bihan, recorder • Ludwin Bernaténé, drums

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Guillaume de Marchaut (1300-1377) was a pre-eminent French poet and composer of the 14th century. He was the first significant composer to became well-known, possibly due to the much larger number of musical works that he left compared with his contemporaries.

He was master of a verse form called 'virelai' (3 stanzas starting and then alternating with the repeated refrain) which is used here. It is said that his poetry was widely admired and copied by other poets, including Chaucer.

The following is a stunning performance of Marchaut's Douce Dame Jolie - the wooing of a 'sweet, pretty lady' - given by La Morra, a group of talented musicians based in Basel, Switzerland who specialise in early music.

Of the many recordings available, this is my favourite because it is so full of life, fun and ardour. Wouldn't you succumb if you were the lady in question?! The three instruments here accompanying the voice(s) are lute, recorder and fiddle.

Guillaume de Machaut (c1300 - 1377) 2m50
Douce Dame Jolie Sweet, pretty Lady

La Molla:
Corina Marti, flet prosty (recorder)
Michał Gondko, lutnia (lute)
VivaBiancaLuna Biffi, śpiew, fidel (voice & fiddle)
Marc Mauillon, śpiew (voice)

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Another major figure was Francesco da Milano (1497-1543), Italian lutenist and composer, considered so important and influential that he was referred to as Il Divino. From his hands came a more developed musical form called Fantasias or Ricercares (the terms are interchangeable for his music) - an advance from simple melodies or harmonic accompaniment. These are stand-alone works written for solo lute - they are elegant and graceful, yet at the same time virtuosic and contrapuntal.

This recording by Israel Golani - one of Europe's acclaimed lute, baroque guitar and theorbo players - shows just such a multi-faceted work, performed with effortless agility. The camerawork clearly shows the lute's double strings ending with a single high string. This is called the 'chanterelle', the singing string, used to highlight the melody.

Francesco (Canova) da Milano (1497-1543) 3m25
aka Francesco da Parigi, Il Divino
La Compagna - Ricercare (or fantasia)

Israel Golani, lute
on a 7-course renaissance lute by Malcolm Prior

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And so we come to the master, John Dowland (1563-1626), most melancholic supremo of English renaissance music. He himself was not unaware of this characteristic of his music; indeed, he wrote a piece with the ironic title: Semper Dowland, semper dolens (Always Dowland, always doleful).

This virtuoso lutenist and composer left a vast legacy of lute music that is internationally acclaimed. He was not averse to re-using his own material and there are many songs re-imagined as instrumental music, and vice versa. Absolutely the most famous of these is the bitter sweet song Flow my tears.

The following recording features a duo made in heaven, counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and lutenist Thomas Dunford, in a performance from the Wigmore Hall in 2013. Of the countless recordings of the song, this duo (Yorkshire/French) succeeds in giving it the most authentic 'English' colouring. It is dripping in renaissance melancholy but the pain is never over-egged as in some other performances.

John Dowland (1653-1726) 4m40
Flow my Tears

Iestyn Davies, countertenor
Thomas Dunford, lute
(although playing a theorbo, Dunford is only using the strings of the lute section)
performed in the Wigmore Hall, London in 2013

Dowland's signature tune, Lachrimae (meaning Tears), is performed below by early music specialist, Christopher Morrongiello, ostensibly in the Chateau de la Bastie d'Urfe in France.

In reality, it is only the intarsia (similar to marquetry) panelling of the chapel that has been transplanted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The dimly-lit period setting is a perfect match for Dowland's beautiful and intense music.

Some four hundred years later, the great English composer Benjamin Britten was inspired to compose a series of variations based on this melody. It, too, is a work of great profundity and is a worthy 20th century homage to the Renaissance master.

John Dowland 5m00
Lachrimae (c1590s)

Christopher Morrongiello, lute
Filmed in the Chapel from Le Château de la Bastie d'Urfé, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Lute, late 16th century. Padua, Italy. Yew, spruce, ebony, maple.

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As time passed and the lute developed - with ever more courses of strings added, longer neck and longer strings to increase the tonal range - it evolved into the Baroque lute. Although Bach composed a number of works for the lute, he devoted much more time to writing for other instruments that were coming to the fore, such as the violin family and various types of keyboard instruments.

As these louder instruments took centre stage, the lute became increasingly relegated to the role of continuo accompaniment. Being a quieter instrument by its nature, it simply could not compete and became superceded. However, its mark had been made - and to this day, any maker of stringed instruments is called a luthier.

The lute is continuing to attract the attention of modern audiences. The 60 year-old Lute Society (UK) is a thriving group of around 1,000 members who celebrate, practise and perpetuate music written for the lute and its myriad cousins from hundreds of years ago. It is possible that, surrounded by a modern world of bustling cacophony, we are drawn to the lute's essential qualities of a delicacy of tone and lyricism that are evocative of contemplation and soliloquy.

The Lute Society's website makes an acute observation: "Discovering the music of the lute is an Alice-through-the-keyhole experience: what appears to be a very small world of sound grows ever larger until one realises that as many different moods are expressed in the lute repertoire as in the classical orchestral repertoire, or in the worlds of jazz or folk music." This was undoubtedly my experience in looking into the world of the lute. The more I learnt, the more there was to learn, and the more I wanted to learn.

I would like to include a performance that may surprise you. We hear again from the incomparable Davies-Dunford duo, this time in a song written by the pop musician, Eric Clapton. The song was written in commemoration of Clapton's son who died in a tragic accident at the age of four. The profound sorrow contained within this lament is tightly wound, tightly controlled, and finds a fitting tribute in the sound of the lute.

John Dowland 3m05
arr Eric Clapton (b1945)
Tears in Heaven (arr 1991)

Iestyn Davies, countertenor • Thomas Dunford, lute
in Cedar's Hall, Wells Cathedral School, Somerset

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And finally, the following is a fascinating trio of 'lute' professionals from Toronto, each clearly a master of his/her craft and each intent on bringing their sound to a modern audience.

The instruments featured - all plucked and clearly related - are oud, lute, and the (Chinese) pipa. These 'ancient' instruments make for an astonishingly contemporary and exciting sound in Longa Yorgu.

The underlying line of Longa Yorgu is an extremely old melody, known throughout the Turkic, Arab, and even Jewish and Greek musical worlds. This well-known line goes back many centuries and it is used as a bass over which to improvise, much in the way that jazz can do.

Neither Peter S nor I have found the meaning of Yorgu, but there are several other well-known Longa's to be explored. Look for 'Longa Yorgu' on your favourite search engine. You will have an interesting sound journey.

Longa Yorgu (Turkish traditional) 1m25

Lute Legend Ensemble, of Toronto, Canada
Bassam Bishara, oud
(teaches Middle Eastern music York University)
Wen Zhao, pipa
(teaches pipa, Royal Conservatory of Music, & York University)
Lucas Harris, lute
(lutenist, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, & course director)

Here is a longer extemporisation on the Longa Yorgu, by accomplished oud player Omar Bashir. This is audio only, but it is still well worth clicking on the arrow that comes up on this page: Omar Bashir - Longa Yorgu

I hope you have enjoyed this fleeting focus on the lute; I look forward to sharing more unusual discoveries with you.

Lynda Chang

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We hope you have enjoyed this Lute Concert
with selections made by Lynda Chang for Music on Thursdays

Watch your email and this website
for news of next Thursday's Musicals 1960 to 1990

11 March: Saint-Saëns Centenary Selection

25 March: Musicals 1960 to 1990

We continue with weekly video selection concerts until the end of June, with hopes of going live at Leatherhead Methodist Church from July 1st.

The first Thursdays in April, May and June will be further special recordings for
Music on Thursdays.
Viols player Ibrahim Aziz is preparing a concert recording for us, for Thursday 1st April.

comments welcome: musiconthursdays@gmail.com

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These concert recordings remain online

click on the buttons below to Listen (and watch) Again

and please tell your friends about them too !

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Carmenco

flute, voice & 2 guitars

Marion Bettsworth

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Marion Bettsworth

Diphonon Duo

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Diphonon viola & accordion Duo

Eddie Lee

Oct 1st

pianist Eddie Lee's

Jazz on Thursday

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