Have you ever wondered how a concert programme is put together? Perhaps the ensemble has some favourite pieces they enjoy playing, or maybe it's a composer's anniversary year. Sometimes a festival might request a particular theme for the artists to consider, or the focus might be on a particular era, genre or region. Putting together a concert programme is an art form in itself, weaving a rich fabric of historic and new works, combined with influences from different genres and disciplines.
If you are relatively new to the surprisingly modern world of early music, you may be amazed to learn just how many concerts are designed to draw you in on many levels. Artistic licence and experimentation are on powerful display as old and new stories are told. We have selected a few programmes coming up over the next few weeks, each with their own distinctive approach to musical storytelling.
The Fairy Queen
27 June Leamington Spa, 29 June Great Malvern, 6 July Dunmow
Armonico Consort present a brand-new adaptation of Purcell’s semi-opera, with a specially adapted script from Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Narrated by Oz Clarke (well-known wine expert, and former actor and choral singer) and actress and singer Laura Moretto, The Fairy Queen - like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream - combines earthy and familiar human emotions with the light-footed, other-worldly character of the fairy kingdom, taking the audience from bewitching beauty and pathos to the rowdiest, raunchiest comedy.
For centuries, what are amongst Purcell’s greatest and most memorable works have left audiences simply baffled by the confused and jumbled story linking them together. For the first time ever, and taking a teaspoon of artistic licence, we give his Fairy Queen our hugely successful Dido and Aeneas treatment …. Of course, all of this with a little bit of help and inspiration from Mr William Shakespeare.
- Christopher Monks, Artistic Director of Armonico Consort
*This tour is supported by a grant from Continuo Foundation
Lomea
Drowned landscapes and storytelling seep into this programme of Baroque sonatas and suites from both sides of the English Channel, devised by Lizzie Knat (recorder) and James Batty (harpsichord):
In putting together this programme, we reflected on the idyllic location of Deal looking out to France across the English Channel. We considered the mythical island of Lomea, which according to legend was part of modern-day Goodwin Sands. This seemed to us a beautiful metaphor for what we create in historical performance, something built half on myth, and half on ever-shifting sands, as tastes change, new research comes to light, and old music is rediscovered and reinterpreted again and again. We experiment with capturing this fleeting vision of the island through semi-improvised renditions of unmeasured preludes for recorder and electronics by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and Louis Couperin.
- James Batty, Composer and Harpsichordist
Bella Donna
11 July, York Early Music Festival
Bella Donna, an idealised and coveted woman, is praised in the tradition of courtly love. Bella Donna is also the sublime yet deadly flower, well known to wise women of old. And what better metaphor to illustrate the ambiguity of the female figure in the medieval imagination?
Exploring the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries, this programme devised by French ensemble Apotropaïk reveals a mosaic of fascinating female characters. Secular or spiritual, the songs paint complex psychological portraits: Temperance, Charm, and Torment. By their actions or their crimes, these female figures overturn the world order.
Secret Byrd
11 July Salisbury (6 & 9pm), 12 July Guildford (6 & 9pm)
The musicians gather by candlelight to worship in secret as Byrd’s Mass for five voices is theatrically interspersed with his virtuosic music for strings. The event is secular yet staged to invite the audience into the deeply personal use that Byrd intended – a private mass for secret worship.
Described by Bill Barclay, creator and director of Secret Byrd, as “part art installation, part concert, and part immersive theatre”, this tribute to William Byrd is presented by The Gesualdo Six and Fretwork viol consort.
… a novel and engrossing way of bringing Renaissance music to the public … done with an intimacy and imagination that embeds this music within the world.
- Opera World
Visionaries
29 June, 30 June (3 performances both days), Chalfont St. Giles
Vache Baroque invites you to experience Visionaries: L’Allegro, il Penseroso, with all your senses.
Enter the historical hall of The Vache to hear the singers and orchestra perform this pastoral ode by Handel, and allow expert multi-sensory guides to create a heightened world of smell, touch, taste, and movement. This project aims at a true expansion of the audience experience.
Curious? Head to Continuo Connect where you will find many more captivating programmes to inspire and transport you.
Until next time,
Kirsten & the Continuo Team