Here's the program and the notes.
Maria Cortegiano
Ricercar Franciscus Bossinensis (fl 1509)
Se non dormi donna ascolta Anon.
Ricercar Bossinensis
O passi sparsi Sebastiano Festa (d. 1524)
Ricercar Bossinensis
Piango el mio fidel servire Anon.
Ricercar Bossinensis
O dolce diva mia Peregrinus Cesena (fl 1510-20)

Tullia d'Aragona c. 1510-56
Varchi il cui raro
Fantasias (Nos. 5,6 &7) Francesco da Milano (1497-1543)
S'io'l feci unqua

Franceschina Bellamano
Donna se 'l cor Ippolito Tromboncino (fl 1540-60s)
Vostra belta si bella Tromboncino
Io moro Tromboncino
Se voi dolc'et pietosi Tromboncino

Intermission

Gaspara Stampa 1523-1554
Amor, lo stato tuo e proprio quale After Vincenzo Galilei (c. 1520-91)
El Pass'e Mezo – Gagliarda La Gasparina Giulio Abondante (fl1546 -1587)

Veronica Franco 1546-1591
Fors’anco Amor Cosimo Bottegari (1564-1620)

Lucia di Filippo Gagnolanti d. 1593
Romanesca Galilei
Torna deh torna Giulio Caccini (c1550–1618)
Fantasia Anon.
Fillide mia Caccini
Fantasia Anon.
Amarilli Caccini
Dalla porta d’oriente Caccini

If an aristocrat in Renaissance Italy were very liberal minded, he might let his wife embroider a pillow to place on the window sill to cushion her elbow while she watched the goings-on in the street. Wives were seldom anywhere unchaperoned and their lives were largely cloisetered.

The courtesan, on the other hand, was free to roam both amorously and intellectually. The ‘cortegiano honeste’ was musician, poet and muse. She didn’t have a price list and customers, she had ‘friends’ who gave her ‘gifts’. Pietro Aretino, a satirist who knew a thing or two about courtesans, tells us that musical instruments and musical hangers-on were among the most important things for the aspiring courtesan to acquire. In one of Aretino’s dialogues Nanna, an old pro, tells Pippa, her protégé, ‘Ask this man for a lute, another for a harpsichord, this man for a viola and that for a lira. Then get the maestri to come and teach you music, getting them to play for you for nothing, paying them with hopes and promises.’

What we know about Maria the courtesan’s repertoire comes from a manuscript of poetry collected by a Domenico Arrighi. He seems to have been quite smitten by Maria, a Roman who moved to Florence. Many of the poems have notes saying that she sang this one or that and these rubrics are often more effusive: ‘This song was her favorite, and she sang it so well that everyone would fall in love with her on hearing her sing it so beautifully.’ We have intabluated the tenor and bass parts of Se non dormi, Piango and O dolce diva for lute since this was the most common mode of performance for the frottola. O passi sparsi is from an English arrangement of Festa’s frottola which is the most famous setting of Petrarch’s text.

Hardly any music survives for the lira da braccio, an instrument which was used to accompany quasi-improvised solo recitation-song in the 15th and 16th century. Hallie reconstructs such a performance from such sources as do survive to perform poems by the most celebrated of the courtesan poets, Tullia. As well as her sonnets, which include many to lovers and patrons like Varchi, she published a philosophic Dialogue on the Infinity of Love from which this concert takes its name. Who better to write on the subject than a professional?

Pietro Aretino was an avid letter writer, and published collections of them. One letter invites the greatest singing teacher of Renaissance Venice, Ippolito Tromboncino, to dinner, saying that the courtesan, and Ippolito’s student, Francheschina will be there, as will the great painter Titian. A painting of Titian’s shows a disinterested Venus staring off into the distance as a lute player serenades her longingly. Could this be Ippolito and Franceschina? He certainly looks as if he will be rewarded with nothing but ‘hopes and promises’.

The performance of poetic forms to stock melodic and chord changes was perhaps the most common form of song in our period. We perform Gaspara’s sonnet to a formula which fits all sonnets and uses the Folia chord changes. The lute chords are notated in rudimentary notation in the hand of Vincenzo Galilei, though we obtain the melody other sources. We sing a passage from one of Veronica’s long terza rime to a textless ‘aria’ for that poetic form from Cosimo Bottegari’s lute song book. We have also sung passages from Dante’s Inferno to the same tune, since any terza rima can be performed to it.

But it’s not clear who was a courtesan. Gaspara was of noble birth, but her family was broke. She had several lovers who gave her ‘gifts’. Lucia was a singer at the Medici court. When there was some doubt about the potency of a noble who was about to marry a Medici daughter Lucia was sent to Venice (what happens in Venice stays in Venice) with the man in question. When she became pregnant the test was passed and he wed the Medici. Lucia was married to singer and composer Giulio Caccini, who received a dowry of several times his annual salary, paid by Ferdinand de Medici. Sleeping with the boss’ future son-in-law in exchange for a huge cash payment for your household would seem to be far beyond the normal duties of a singer. The edges of courtesanship were quite blurry in the 16th century. We might be more certain saying courtesans were independent women, accomplished poets and musicians than women who took money for sex.

Hallie and I were working on choosing music for the upcoming courtesan concert. I think we've settled on:

Songs from a poetry manuscript collected in the beginning of the 16th c. The collector, Domenico Arrighi has written beside the poems of Maria Cortigiana 'This song was her favorite, and she sang it so well that everyone would fall in love with her on hearing her sing it so beautifully.’etc. I'll intabulate some of the frottolas that Arrighi says she sang. This set is after an article by William Prizer.

Songs by Ippolito Tromboncino. He, a courtesan called Francesca Bellamano, Titian and Aretino used to hang out together. Tromboncino also was Francesca's singing teacher. Aretino has Nanna (an old courtesan) say to Pippa (new at the job) 'Then get the maestri to come and teach you music, getting them to play for you for nothing, paying them with hopes and promises.’ David Nutter suggests the Titan above is of Ippolito singing to Francesca; the body language suggests he's not going to get more than hope tonight, I think.

Songs sung (and played) by Hallie to the lira da braccio to melodic formulas, with poems by Tullia d'Aragona. She wrote many sonnets and the Dialogue on the Infinity of Love after which the concert is named.

Texts by Veronica Franco sung to textless songs in the Bottegari lute book. There are tunes you can plug any terza rima into, sonnets into etc.

Music by Giulio Caccini. He was given a dowry of several times his annual salary to marry the soprano Lucia di Filippo Gagnolanti, who he worked with at the Medici court. According to Timothy Mc Gee, the Medici family wanted to make sure that a Gonzaga family member was not 'shooting blanks', since he had been married before with no issue, before he married their daughter. Lucia, the future Mrs. Caccini, was sent off to Venice to test this out. She came back pregnant. I don't know whether your household getting a massive chunk of money for your sleeping with the boss's future son-in-law passes the definition of courtesan, but the line between 'female singer' and 'courtesan' was pretty fine.

I think I'll play some Francesco da Milano. He worked for Pope Leo X who was a big supporter of the courtesans. And I think I'll play some dances: Thomas Morely says 'The Italians make their Galliards (which they term Saltarelli) plain .... they have courtesans disguised in men's apparel who sing and dance to their own songs.'

Yesterday The Musicians In Ordinary did an 'informance' at U of Toronto's Scarborough Campus. The repertoire was songs and solos associated with Philip Sidney and the Earl of Essex. Talked some about who really wrote the 'Essex' poems (himself or his employees Henry Cuff and Francis Bacon?) and Sidney's Astrophel and Stella and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Prof. Katie Larson was the point man on setting this up. Here are some pics:

Hallie remembers to turn off her cellphone.

Hallie fills out the release form for our picture being taken.

Snacks at the reception afterwards.

But the real reason we wanted to go to Scarborough, St. Andrew's Scottish fish and chips shop on McCowan and Ellesmere. That's deep fried mealy pudding in the top left of my plate.

Here's a snap from last week's concert. It was great fun.


And here's the program:

Fair cruell nymph Alfonso Ferrabosco II (1572-1628)
❀
Songs on Flowers
Go lovely rose William Lawes (1602-45)
To Pansies - Ah! cruel love W. Lawes
On the Marigold - Mark how the blushful morn Henry Lawes (1596-1662)
On the Lillys - White though ye be W. Lawes
To the Sicamour - I’m sick of Love Nicholas Lanier (1588-1666)
Gather ye rosebuds W. Lawes
❀
Loves Constancy - No more may meads Lanier
Now in the sad declension of our time W. Lawes
Be not proud pretty one W. Lawes
❀
Hero’s Complaint to Leander Lanier
❀
Coranto René Saman (fl 1610-31)
Coranto (Jacques?) Gaultier (fl.1617-60)

Intermission

Songs from Plays
Tell me dearest Robert Johnson (1582-1633)
So beautie on the waters stood - Had those that dwell in error - If all the ages of the earth Ferrabosco
The Cutpurse Song - I keep my horse W. Lawes
Care charming sleep Johnson
Full fathom five - Where the bee sucks Johnson
❀
Fuggi fuggi fuggi Anon.
Tavola - In quel gelato core H. Lawes
❀
Pavan Johnson
❀
Woe’s me! Alas Robert Ramsey (fl. 1612-1644)

Darryl Edwards, tenor, has appeared to critical acclaim in oratorio, recital, and opera in England, Germany, France, Italy, Corsica, the United States, and across Canada. His recent and upcoming engagements include Kodály's Psalmus Hungaricus with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, the Verdi Requiem at Dalhousie University, Orff's Carmina Burana with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Mozart Requiem with the Toronto Philharmonia, and Handel's Messiah with the Elmer Iseler Singers. Critics praise him as a ‘rich-voiced, cultured tenor who mastered the high notes effortlessly’ (Coburg Tageblatt, Germany), and an ‘effective communicator who expressed the text with sensitivity and fervour’ (Hamilton Spectator). His recordings and broadcasts include performances with National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Music Centre (Centrediscs). He is the Artistic Director of the Centre for Opera in Sulmona, Italy and the Concert Opera Group.

Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as ‘winning performers of winning music’. Now in their seventh season of concerts in Toronto, they perform across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed include the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta and Toronto, the Kingston Opera Guild, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. Their debut CD of Elizabethan and Jacobean songs, Sleep Wayward Thoughts, is available at intermission.

Fair, Cruel Nymph
‘Wilson! There’s more words, let’s hear them all.’ King Charles I so ordered the singer John Wilson during a performance. This not only shows that the King was paying attention, but that he appreciated the disservice that Wilson was doing to the poet by leaving verses unsung.

And the delivery of the poetry had become the most important aspect of songwriting as England imported the new Italian Baroque style at the beginning of the 17th century. The complicated polyphony that the lute song composers of the John Dowland generation was gone, replaced by a bass from which the lutenist improvised chords. For this new style the English also imported the theorbo, a lute that had been invented by the Italians to provide a big bass sound. Inigo Jones, architect and designer of the sets for the court masque, is supposed to have imported the first theorbo. According to a contemporary diarist the weird instrument’s owner was interrogated by the authorities, who thought it might be ‘a machine brought from popish countries to destroy the king’. Indeed, Italian fashions dominated the vocal music of the post-Dowland generation so much that Henry Lawes set the table of contents from an Italian songbook to mock those who sang in Italian without understanding what they were singing.

The English Civil War stopped the slide to absolutism that became the political hallmark of 17th century France. If it hadn’t who’s to say that the heroic declamation of the masque, where the aristocrats assured themselves that they were rightly at the head of the body politic, and even that James’s Queen Anne was greater than Elizabeth, would not have combined with the drama of dialogues like Woe’s me to become court opera like that cultivated by Louis XIV and Lully? It’s moot though; The English were not going to stand for a despot, however benevolent, and the masque, baroque court music and the tradition of the Shakesperean theatre were all cut off by the Commonwealth. Perhaps the theorbo, which was used in these genres, did contribute to the destruction of King Charles, then.

We've been rehearsing with Darryl Edwards for the upcoming concert which has been many lols. The repertoire is Jacobean and Carolingian music by composers like the Lawes Bros., Nicholas Lanier etc. Words are by Ben Jonson, Herrick, Shakespeare and others.

Here's some snapshots from the rehearsals.

Darryl explains how he purchased three 5 dollar footlong sandwiches, one each.

Hallie reflects on the sad fate of Hero and Leander as she prepares to rehearse Lanier's great Lament thereon.
John has been having balls of fun using English theorbo tuning, which has only the top string down the 8ve, and is 'in G'; Good for c minor and Eb major, which your English composers liked.

Here is a picture of Hallie working with Prof. Tim McGee, who is retired from the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. Among his many accomplishments Tim started the Toronto Consort. One of the first books I read on early music was his 'beginner's guide'.

He's been working on what son might have been accompanied by the lira da braccio, an instrument much played by humanist poets in the late 15th and 16th century. They appear to have improvised, or quasi-improvised their settings. It has a flat bridge so plays drone effects though you can lean the bow over and play some melodic flourishes on the top string alone. It also has one string offboard of the fingerboard which was plucked with the left thumb. Here is the lira Tim made.


Hallie will be singing some poems by Tullia d'Aragona to this instrument and will be going with Tim to the huge Medieval conference in Kalamazoo in May.

We had a busy long weekend with 3 shows in 4 days with different music. Friday was a presentation for the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies on the attribution of the poems of the Earl of Essex which were set to music by Dowland, Batchelar et al. After the chin-wagging we performed the songs (except for From silent night, which uses a violin or treble viol) and it went very well. I had arranged The Earl of Essex's Second Lute Song from Benjamin Britten's Gloriana for the last piece. Here is the text that he sets:

Happy were hee could finish foorth his Fate
In some unhaunted Desert, most Obscure;
From all Society, from Love, from Hate
Of Worldly Folke! Then should Hee Sleepe Secure;
Then Wake againe, and yield God ever Praise,
Content with Hippes, and Hawes, and Brambleberry,
In Contemplation passing still his Daies,
And change of Holy Thoughts to make him Merry;
Who when Hee dies, his Tombe may bee a Bush,
Where Harmeles Robin dwells with Gentle Thrush.

Your Majesty’s Exiled Servant
Rob: Essex

Sunday afternoon was a performance for the Toronto Early Music Centre. We did our Ingrato e Crudo Amore repertoire. Music from Isabella d'Este's circle, some Verdelot madrigals and some of the music talked about in the last post. After the show we met with Prof. Katie Larson to talk about a conference in the fall at University of Maryland that she is putting together a session for.

Monday night was the Arts and Letters Club, accompanying Timothy McGee's presentation on the song Fortuna Desperata from the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The picture, which has sort of Leonardo da Vinci vs. Marcel Duchamp thing happening is from the washroom at the Arts and Letters Club.