Orpheus' Lyre

Charles II

The next Catacoustic concert will continue a tour of 17^th-century England that we began last spring.  You may remember the concert in Terrace Park of music by John Dowland, and how in peaceful 1607 he could comfortably compose music of gorgeous longing and transcendent melancholy.  But what happened next?  The Tudors gave way to the Stuarts, the Stuarts thoroughly alienated themselves from their people, and so began the English Civil War.  The appalling story of this catastrophic war which was fought between 1642 and 1651, but whose tensions began many years before and whose fallout lasted decades after, must be told elsewhere; for now let us reduce all the facts to this one: almost one million people died in England, Scotland, and Ireland, out of a population of 7.5 million.

Oliver Cromwell

 But the music didn’t stop.  We live in wartime ourselves—we know that the need for self-expression becomes greater, if anything, in times of stress.  England produced many great composers during these benighted decades, and it is their music we will hear December 7.  Our tour of this tragic century in England will conclude in April with a concert dedicated entirely to the music of William Lawes, the soldier-composer.  

If peacetime gave us beautiful melancholic music, what did wartime produce?  Adrenaline and the sense that each day could be one’s last gave the music energy and made the composers bold.  Born of turbulent times, the music was experimental, even avant-garde for the day.  Some of it was light-hearted and comic, to suit people seeking an hour’s relief from their distressing daily lives.  An example of this is The Twelve Wonders of the World, a set of satirical songs based on stock characters by John Maynard, c 1577-1633.  Maynard’s fluffy satires were nevertheless ahead of their time in their instrumental arrangements.  

Christopher Simpson

Christopher Simpson, 1602-1669, on the other hand, was a dedicated teacher, and wrote the most important instructional books for viol ever—they are still used by students today, 350 years after their publication.  But Simpson’s outwardly dull books, with titles like A Compendium of Practical Musick, were actually filled with virtuosic pieces, startling in their creativity.  John Jenkins, 1592-1678, was an industrious, religious man, who fled to the countryside during the war, where he taught and composed prolifically for the viol.  The Oxford Companion to Music has this to say about this sober,
conventional man: “The best of his music is distinguished by its lyrical invention, emotional intensity, and adventurous tonal schemes, and his first-hand knowledge of the viol allowed him to exploit its expressive and technical capabilities to the full.”

Some of these composers were pro-Parliament, some of them were Royalists. Some wrote light music, others more serious.  But what all
these men had in common was that they sojourned in cataclysm, and
tried to make sense of their experiences through vibrant,
ground-breaking music. 

Which brings us to the lyra viol.  This is an odd little off-shoot of the viol family, a chordal instrument in a family of melody-makers.  Part viol, part lirone, it is capable of playing both a tune and its accompanying chords.  Music for it is written not on the staff, but in tablature.  Strings are often retuned to create the harmonic combinations they were looking for.  (Remember Jenkins’ “adventurous tonal schemes”?)  The resulting sound is warm, complex, and rich beyond all expectation—an entire orchestra speaking in one voice.

Lyra Viol

Lyra viol was popular 300 years ago, especially in England. Perhaps an anomalous instrument was necessary to describe a world gone mad.  But very few people today have taken it up.  The music you will hear at this concert, therefore, is very rarely performed, and is far outside the mainstream of Baroque viol music. An ensemble of extraordinary musicians, viols, lutes, and voices, will assemble at the beautiful Indian Hill Church to take us to another place and time, not so  different from our own. 

7:30pm Saturday, December 7, 2013

Indian Hill Church, 6000 Drake Road, Cincinnati (Indian Hill), OH  45243

Ample parking is available in church parking lot.

Individual tickets are $25 general, $10 student. Children 12 and under are always free. Tickets are available at the door, in advance by calling 513.772.3242, or at www.catacoustic.com.

A Treasure Trove of Instruments

Catacoustic Consort kicks off its 13^th season on October 25, with an absolutely unique event for the city of Cincinnati. In performance with Catacoustic will be Catharina Meints, one of the great viola da gamba virtuosos in the world. To have an opportunity to hear her play would be reason enough to celebrate, but something else makes this appearance unmissable.

Meints is the owner and curator of the internationally famous Caldwell Collection of Viols, one of the most important collections of antique instruments in the world. She and her husband, the late James Caldwell, spent decades acquiring, restoring, and performing on viols built in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.  These instruments were built during the height of the viol’s popularity, by craftsmen as well known as Niccolò Amati and Joachim Tielke. This was a time when the sound of the instrument was not the only consideration—the physical object itself was considered a work of art, lovingly worked in etchings and inlay, sometimes tattooed with pictures or maps. The collection is usually housed in a climate-controlled environment in Oberlin, Ohio, but for the first time in years Ms. Meints will be bringing several of them here to Cincinnati. They will not be on display, for us to look at behind the glass—they will be played right in front of us. Unlike most museum instrument collections, these are kept alive by frequent playing.

Meints has recently published a beautiful book about the collection. The Caldwell Collection of Viols is packed with gorgeous photographs, a memoir of a lifetime of collecting, and an audio CD of each and every one being played. Copies of this large-format, multimedia production will also be available for purchase at the concert.  

This event is part of the Constella Festival. Don’t miss this extraordinary opportunity to see and hear one of the greatest instrument collections anywhere. It’s happening only here in Cincinnati.

And while you’re at it, why not pick up tickets for the entire Catacoustic season? This concert is only the first of an unprecedented series of concert gems, including guest artists from Germany and Italy, vocal and instrumental music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and a tour through some of the most beautiful venues in the city. Tickets may be purchased online at catacoustic.com. 

Catacoustic's Twelfth Season: It was a very good year

The 12^th season of the Catacoustic Consort is winding down, and it’s time for a look back on perhaps the most successful season so far.  With the energetic leadership of a new Board—including an active, enthusiastic Advisory Board—we witnessed lots of firsts this year.  We may one day look back on the 12^th season as the tipping point—the year Cincinnati truly became a national center for early music, with Catacoustic leading the way.

The season had so many highlights.  Back in October, Catacoustic performed in Middletown for Middfest, and then brought that show to Cincinnati for the Constella Festival as well.  It was an exciting chance to welcome Elizabeth Motter to the stage on Baroque Triple Harp, in a beautiful concert of French Baroque music.  

In December we enjoyed the spectacular Stabat Mater concert.  Soprano Youngmi Kim set the rafters ringing with church music from 17^th century Rome.  For the first time, Catacoustic worked with a stage director, Omer Ben-Saedia, and the result was an incredible atmosphere and, to Artistic Director Annalisa Pappano, the musical highlight of the year.  

In February Cincinnati welcomed Matthias Maute, recorder virtuoso extraordinaire, with record-setting attendance.  If recorder were better known, Maute would be as acclaimed as Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, or any other superstar of a modern instrument.  His musicianship is among the best you will ever hear on any instrument, and he got an electric energy out of the audience that evening.  Not coincidentally, the surprisingly large local recorder scene turned out in force, and they were energized as well.  It’s clearly time for a re-birth of interest in this venerable instrument in our city.

Next up was another first—a collaboration with another local music ensemble.  The March concert with concert:nova of music inspired by Shakespeare was a huge hit with the two large audiences that were actually cheering by the end.  The Mercantile Library was a beautiful venue, and Jennifer Joplin of the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company led us deep into a world outside our daily lives.  

We wrapped up with the annual candlelight concert.  This was an intense, complicated program of all John Dowland, and the audience was right with the performers the whole way.  Annalisa felt like she was playing with the best consort of viols of her life.  Another Shakespearean, Jeremy Dubin, helped put it all together.  And a Project Grant from ArtsWave helped make it possible.

Some spectacular music was made, right here in Cincinnati, that people in other cities may never get a chance to hear.  The rapidly growing audiences show how much this fact is appreciated.  Cincinnati is no longer just for Beethoven and Brahms—it’s clearly for Bach and Buxtehude as well.  Viol consorts perform at church services.  Historic instruments like harpsichords and Baroque organs are in use across town.  Early Music workshops have large enrollments.  Amateurs gather in each other’s homes to sing and play. The city’s universities are proving grounds for Renaissance choral music, Baroque opera, medieval chant.  Cincinnati Shakespeare Company recites at Catacoustic’s concerts, and Catacoustic plays for their productions in return.  It’s happening all around us.

Which leads us to another first for the year:  The Cincinnati Early Music Festival.  This February saw a ground-breaking attempt to corral the remarkable numbers of early music performers into a platform where they could be showcased properly.  The month was packed with events of all kinds, different venues, unusual instruments, music from a wide range of centuries.  Next year’s Festival, spearheaded by Catacoustic, is already in the planning stages.

This was also the third year for Catacoustic’s scholarship program.  The award this year went to Michael Zaret, who, after some years away, is returning to an old love:  the recorder.  We hope to hear great things from Michael going forward.

The real end of the season will be Memorial Day, May 27.  We are having our annual Yard Sale, the proceeds of which go toward the scholarship fund.  This year we will be on Upland, the most beautiful street in East Walnut Hills.  Please donate any goods looking for a new gig, or come by and find new treasures.  

Then head home and start counting down the days till the 13^th season.  It’s going to be great!

Elizabethan Poetry for Lachrimae

Many people have requested the text of the poetry that was read during the Lachrimae concert by Jeremy Dubin, our brilliant Shakespearean actor.  The selections were recommended by UC professor Trish Thomas Henley. (It takes a village to put on a really good concert.) 

Notice that the first poem is by the Roman poet Ovid, ("Old Tears," a poem from antiquity) in a translation that sounds colloquial to us today, ostensibly as it would have sounded to the original Latin-speaking readers.  Then the same poem is presented again in a translation by Christopher Marlowe, in colloquial Elizabethan English ("Old Tears Renewed," an antique poem given a modern treatment--modern for 1580, that is.)

Lachrimæ Antiquae (Old Tears)

Book III Elegy III: She's Faithless.  Ovid (1 century BCE)

Gods exist, go on, believe it - she broke the promise

she made and is still as lovely as she was before!

The long hair she had when she wasn't a liar,

is just as long after she's offended the gods.

Her radiance was whiteness tinged with a rosy blush

before - the blush shines on amongst the snow.

Her feet were slender - her feet are delicately formed.

She was tall and graceful - tall and graceful she remains.

Bright-eyes she had - they are radiant as stars,

with which she so often deceived me with her lies.

No doubt the eternal gods allow girls to swear

falsely too, and beauty has divinity.

I remember she swore by her eyes the other day,

and by mine: look, it is mine that felt the pain!

Tell me, gods, if she cheated you with impunity

why did I deserve punishment instead?

But didn't innocent virgin Andromeda die by your order,

for her mother's crime of boastful beauty?

Not enough for you, that I find you worthless witnesses,

but she laughs at me, and you, playful gods, unpunished?

By my punishment do I redeem her lying:

shall I be victim, deceived by the deceiver?

Either a god's a thing of no account, an idle fear,

stirring the crowd through their foolish credulity:

or if there's a true god, he loves tender girls,

and allows them all excessive liberties.

For us Mars straps on his deadly sword:

for us the hand of Pallas lifts the unfailing spear.

For us the pliant bow of Apollo's bent:

for us Jove's lofty right hand holds the fire.

The gods, offended, are scared to offend these beauties

and, besides, they fear those who don't fear them.

And who should bother to burn incense on their altars?

We men it's true need to show more spirit!

Jupiter blasts his own groves and hills with fire,

and neglects to hurl his bolts at perjured girls.

So many deserved it - but poor Semele was burned!

Her punishment was of her own making:

but if she'd withdrawn from her lover's coming,

no father would have played mother to Bacchus.

Why complain and abuse all of heaven?

The gods too have eyes: the gods have hearts!

If I were a god, I'd let girls with lying lips

deceive my divinity without punishment:

I'd swear, myself, the girls were swearing truly

and I'd not be a god who spoke sourly.

Still, girl, you should use their gift in moderation -

or at least spare these eyes of mine!

Lachrimæ Antiquae Novae (Old Tears Renewed)

Christopher Marlowe's Translation of Ovid's BOOK 3, ELEGY 3 (ca. 1580s)

De amica, quae periuraverat
(Concerning his mistress, who has perjured herself)

What, are there gods? Herself she hath forswore,
And yet remains the face she had before.
How long her locks were, ere her oath she took:
So long they be, since she her faith forsook.
Fair white with rose red was before commix'd:
Now shine her looks pure white and red betwixt.
Her foot was small: her foot's form is most fit:
Comely tall was she, comely tall she's yet.
Sharp eyes she had: radiant like stars they be,
By which she perjur'd oft hath lied to me.
In sooth th'eternal powers grant maids society
Falsely to swear , their beauty hath some deity.
By her eyes I remember late she swore,
And by mine eyes, and mine were pained sore.
Say gods: if she unpunish'd you deceive,
For others faults, why do I loss receive?
But did you not so envy Cepheus' daughter,
For her ill-beauteous mother judg'd to slaughter?
'Tis not enough, she shakes your record off;
And unreveng'd mock'd gods with me doth scoff.
But by my pain to purge her perjuries,
Cozen'd, I am the cozener's sacrifice.
God is a name, no substance, fear'd in vain,
And doth the world in fond belief detain.
Or if there be a God, he loves fine wenches,
And all things too much in their sole power drenches.
Mars girts his deadly sword on for my harm:
Pallas lance strikes me with unconquer'd arm.
At me Apollo bends his pliant bow:
At me Jove's right-hand lightning hath to throw.
The wronged gods dread fair ones to offend,
And fear those, that to fear them least intend.
Who now will care the altars to perfume?
Tut, men should not their courage so consume.
Jove throws down woods and castles with his fire:
But bids his darts from perjur'd girls retire.
Poor Semele, among so many burn'd;
Her own request to her own torment turn'd.
But when her lover came, had she drawn back,
The father's thigh should unborn Bacchus lack.
Why grieve I? And of heaven reproaches pen?
The gods have eyes and breasts as well as men.
Were I a god, I should give women leave,
With lying lips my godhead to deceive,
Myself would swear , the wenches true did swear ,
And I would be none of the gods severe.
But yet their gift more moderately use,
Or in mine eyes, good wench, no pain transfuse.

Lachrimæ Gementes (Singing Tears)

Shakespeare's Sonnet 8:

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,

Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well tuned sounds

By unions married do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

Resembling sire and child and happy mother,

Who all in one pleasing note do sing;

    Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

     Sing this to thee: “Though single wilt prove none.”

Lachrimæ Tristes (Sad Tears)

From Thomas Wilson's The Teares of Fancie, or Love Disdained (1593) 

Sonnet VIII

Now Love triumphed having got the day,
Proudly insulting, tyrannizing still:
As Hawk that ceaseth on the yielding pray,
So am I made the scorn of Victor's will.

Now eyes with tears, now heart with sorrow fraught,

Hart sorrows at my watery tears lamenting:

Eyes shed salt tears to see harts pining thought,

And both that then love scorn'd are now repenting.
But all in vain too late I plead repentance,

For tears in eyes and sighs in heart must wield me:

The feathered boy hath doom'd my fatal sentence,

That I to tyrannizing Love must yield me.

And bow my neck erst subject to no yoke,

To Love's false lure (such force hath beauties stroke).

Lachrimæ Coactae (Forced Tears)

From Thomas Wyatt “Farewell Love” (pub. 1557)

Farewell, Love, and all thy laws forever.

Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.

Senec and Plato call me from thy lore

To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavor.

In blind terror when I did persever,

Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh ay so sore,

Hath taught me to set in trifles no store

And scape forth since liberty is lever.

Therefore farewell. Go trouble younger hearts

And in me claim no more authority.

With idle youth go use thy property

And thereon spend thy many brittle darts:

For hitherto though I have lost all my time,

Me lusteth no longer rotten boughs to climb.

Lachrimae Amantis (Lover's Tears)
John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (pub. 1633)

As virtuous men pass mildly away,    

And whisper to their souls to go,

Whilst some of their sad friends do say    

The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,    
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys    
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,    
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,    
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love    
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove    
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,    
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,    
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,    
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,    
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so    
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show    
To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,    
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,    
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,    
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,    
And makes me end where I begun. 

Lachrimæ Verae (True Tears)

 A VALEDICTION OF WEEPING by John Donne

                LET me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth.
                For thus they be
                Pregnant of thee ;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more ;
When a tear falls, that thou fall'st which it bore ;
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

                On a round ball
A workman, that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.
                So doth each tear,
                Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolvèd so.

                O! more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere ;
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea, what it may do too soon ;
                Let not the wind
                Example find
To do me more harm than it purposeth :
Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,
Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.