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f l d k d h p a r a d a a l P a ~ t m m Tina Chancey oielles. mbec, kmen] , hm, reconit?n Gram Hemid lutes, saz. psaltery, recodeers Scon Ress recorders. hamnaeredduktmer, dombe

(stamP~ta htmfmia Anon, 1 4 t h ~

welle, saz, domhek 5 ,y C1kulc;oneta redexha Anon .

14rh-c Italy recorder. lute. kameni

kc .- refider. v ide

In order to describe what Nw-Medim1 is, we must begin by saying what it is not. NeolMedieval is not about what medieval performers probab[y did, or even about what they might have done. The long road of historically-infonned performance ends abruptly before giving us enough raw material to make music. Too many questions end in silence. In this recording, Hesperus begins at that ending place, and works towards creating a living tradition, using whatever history and the music have left us as our raw materials.

We don't see the Middle Ages as an extension of our cultural past, but rather as a kind of foreign country, since to modem people the Medieval is as distant from our own cultural landscape as any living culture is today. We don't attempt to represent this music as it was in all its diversity, this we can never really how. Rather, in our performances we try to incorporate whatever shadow remains of that original sound in the written remnants of the music. These remnants, medieval manuscripts, were often used as a record or reminder of musical experience rather than a score to be performed. Most of the actual musical experience must be fleshed out.

The twentiethcentury performance history of very early music is full of creativity, a pimeerlng sense of adventure, and a quest for discovery; a quest which led performers not only to exhilarating discoveries, but also to disturbing silmces. When we ask history, "What did they do?" "How drd they do it?" and "What did it sound like?" history often does not respond. Musical and literary remains of medieval European culture do provide islands of infomation, but the islands are surrounded by seas of speculation. The tapesuy of medieval life as viewed from our vantage point in the twentieth c m m ~ is, unfortunately, fd of holes.

For us, particularly in our experience as Insrmmentalisrs, there was always a nagging sense of something just beyond our grasp - the holes, the silences,

haunted us. So, we have decided to m-create medieval music in the present, rather than trying to vecomtmctperformances from the past. The actual sound of medieval music as it was heard in its own time is gone and the belief that we can fmd it is a myth, a redemptive myth posing a romantically idealized past as a goal or a model. It is like trying to guess the colors in an old black and white photograph.

Those colors are the musical intangibles: how we play a phrase, a rhythm; the timbre we create with our instments or voices; the way we express our passion in the music. Therein lies our opportunity for choice. With Neo- Medieval we embrace the awareness that we are historically situated performers - we come from our own time, we make choices based on our own tastes. Our medieval music does reflect our knowledge and awareness of history, art, music, literature, architecture, and the other arts, but it also reflects our other experiences and our perceptions of the past, the music, and our present.

Like all convincing performances, ours transforms the music as it is re- created. That is the nature of any true performance - performers don't simply reproduce the notes they are given. Instead they take them, digest them, and bring the music into new Wing through their performance. When that is done from the heart, the performance is aurhentic in the truest sense.

In this approach to medieval performance we begin with one commonly accepted thought - that medieval instrumental music was an oral and impvoviikztoy tradition. Oral tradition can't be discovered except in the present; it can't be reconsmcted but must always be created anew. This makes it a tradition, constantly in flux. One of Hesperus's chief contributions to the living tradition of medieval music is to place the highest value on improvisation.

Our improvisation takes many forms. Simple melodic improvisation occurs in more than half of the pieces, mcluding all the dance tunes and the works by

Machaut. We take the written notes as a suggested starting place; then we vary , the tunes, add notes, take athers away, and alter €he rhythm to keep the melodies fresh and growing. Machaut in particular lends irself well to improvisation: the solos on "By mi" and "Dame, vostre doulz viaire" are conoeived as narrative; without words we tell a story with the music. In I , "Comment qu'a moi" we improvise on the rh'gthmic meter.

On "Se d'amer" we take melodic improvisation a W e further, improvising on the structure of the tune itself. This is also our approach to the "Chaqoneta tedescha"; after a free introduction on the lute the tune is stated twice, and then freely improvised upon in sixteen-bar units, the same length as the repeated tune, interspersed with refrains. This approach is similar to jazz, except that in jazz the new melody is created over a set of chord 1 changes, in "Tedescha" it is extemporized over a drone.

Since a vast amounr of extant medieval music is primarily vocal, we also approach vocal polyphony as though it had found its way into the I instmmental tradirion. Of the multi-part piem we perfonn instrumentally, only one is improwisationd in character. We treat "Crudfigat Omnes," a three-voh conductus, as if we had teamed it through several h e m g s in church, playinf * our lines in turn, freely, followed by a loosely-jointed rendering of the three parts together. The other vocal pieces; the mass movement %we Cu-rte," the songs of Johannes Ciconia, Jacob de Senkches, Adam de la Halle and the anonymous "Pucelette," we perform in straightforward instrumental renderings.

The works on this recording represent a number of different forms: instrumental dance farms such as the estampie (istampita), chan~oneta and saltarello; secular, poetic fwmesfIxes such as the vitelai PAY, mi," "Dame, vostre daulz viaire," "Se d'amer," and "Comment qu'a moi") the rondeau ("Tant que je vivrai"), and ballade ("Dame, se vous," % attendant," "De ce que foul," and "Una pantheran); and religious forms such as €he kyrie, conductus CCrudfigat") and motet ("Pucelette").

! One of the coloristic possibilities we take advantage of is that of instrumental timbre; in Nw-Medieval, Hesperus uses a panoply of mediwd-

I stvk and modem traditional instruments. Besides the more familiar recorders, .vielle, psaltery, rebec and lute, one can hear a brassstrung Arabic saz in "Manfredina," a Turkish kamenj or Pontic lyra in "Tedescha" and "Viaire huh,'' a Yugoslavian eggplant-shaped lyra in "Crudfigat," and an American- made hammered dulcimer descended from the ancient Persian santur in "Sal tard~,~ 'Brid one brere," and the opening English "Estampk."

--Scot2 R& 6 Tina Cbancq

Hesperus is a group with a vision. Innovative, historically- informed and multi-cultural, this ensemble performs eight centuries of music from four continents. Expen at creating a synthesis of living and historic traditions, Hesperus is just as comfortable improvising a medieval dance as a 1950's Chicago blues; recreating a haunting Inca flute tune as a 17th-century Irish ballad; dazzllng with a virtuosic baroque concerto as with a rapid-fire Appalachian mountain breakdown. Hesperus offers two kinds of programs: either a single-style early music program, or a fusion of European early music genre Hesperus always perform a sense of fun.

and --lition_ -.yles. ma.- -r the s with creative energy, technical assurance and

TINA CHANCEY T i is a founding member of Hesperus as well as a performing member of

the Folger Comrt. In 1985 and 1990 she received Solo Recitalist Gfants from the National Endowment for the Arts to suppart solo performances on the pardessus de viole at the Kennedy Center's Tenace Theater and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Her articles on early music have appeared in a score of publications, and she has recorded for Delos, Greenhays, EMI, Windham W, Bard, Musical Heritage, Arabesque, Maggie's Music, and Golden Apple. She received her PhD from the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, and has recently released a recoiding of six baroque suites by Barthtlemy de Caix on the Dorian Discovery label IDIS-801501.

GRANT HERREID Grant played trumpet and bass in jazz bands until a grawing interest in

early music led him to eam a M2ster-s degree in Early Music Ped-nce at Sarah Lawrence College. As "lutenist-at-large" on the East Coast, he petforms h u e n t l y wirh LiveOak and Co. and the Folger Consort, and is a member of Pitraro (formerly rhe Philadelphia Renaissance Wind Band) and h e baroque ensemble krtek. Director d Historid Rrformance at the Marines College of Music, he has written and dkcted pdwtiomi of the Manna Cmmata. He now devotes his energ& to exp1mtions of the unwritten traditions of early Renaissance music the New York quartet Fix Umbris.

SCOTT REISS Scott is the Founder and Artistic Director of Hesperus and a founding

member and codirector of the Folger Consort. Mr. Reiss has appeared as .n recorder soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra, Concert Royal, the 20th Century Consort, the Smithsonian Chamber Players, Ehe Washington Bach Consort, the Annapolis Bmss Quintet, and Piffaro. He has created several styles of "crossover fusion," combining early music with traditional styles of music. He has recorded for Smithsmian Recordings, Delos, Bard, Maggie's Music, Greenhays, and Golden Apple, and his articles have appeared in The American Recorder, Continuo, and Early Music AmhCdJ magazines in the US, and Tibia in Germany.

Catalog No. DIS-80155

Recorded at St. John's @iscop1 Church, Ellicon City, Ma y b n d in August PM.

Pmiucers: Tina Clmmey, Scott Belss Engineer Paul Bensel Editor: David GIasser (AiAhow) Mmtm'ng E n g i m Daoid E W-a@e~% Booklet Prepamtion &Biting: Ibtkrhe k Dory Grrrphic Dengn: Eimbedy Smith Go.

Other Dorian CDs feahcring Tima Chancey include: DIS-80150 & Cahc Six Swatas &TWO Fardesses

&vide *DuoGuersan

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