Laymusic.org

Mushrooms

Laura Conrad — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:10:53 +0000

Mushrooms on May 17, 2012

We had a very hot and dry April in this part of the world, so we were all wondering whether there would be flowers in May at all.

Fortunately, we’ve had a cool, wet May, so there are not only flowers (a lot of the May ones bloomed in April, but we’re getting some of the June roses now) but these mushrooms sprung up on the sidewalk across the street from me.

Dried mushrooms

News of the week of May 15, 2012

Laura Conrad — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:27:34 +0000

Meeting Report

We played:

Bach, "O Gott, du frommer Gott"
"Duke St."
Sermisy, Martin menait son pourceau au marché
Entre vous qui aymés
Byrd, This sweet and merry month of May
Byrd, The leaves be green
Courtois, Petit Jacquet
White, Great Tom is cast

Schedule

We will be having dropin meetings as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45pm at my place.

News of the week of May 8, 2012

Laura Conrad — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:31:36 +0000

Meeting Report

We played:

Schedule

We will be having dropin meetings as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45pm at my place.

The history of West Gallery music

Laura Conrad — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:53:28 +0000

This post is so wrongheaded that I initially had no idea how to start, so I thought about it until I did. I'm going to start with the misstatements of fact, and then procede to the wrongheaded opinions.

Mr. White states that The Oxford Movement "booted this old nonsense out of [Church of England] liturgical practice", which is true and "cleared the way for the 'high' choral evensong that remains Anglicanism's greatest gift to the world." It was not the Oxford movement that invented choral evensong, but the great 16th century polyphonists (Byrd, Morley, Gibbons...) who are also the people who wrote the first psalm settings from which the West Gallery tradition arose. And the Melstock Band in "Under the Greenwood Tree" was not succeeded by organs and surpliced choirboys but by a harmonium, with a music-box like mechanism allowing anybody who can turn the crank to play an "approved" version of an "approved" hymn.
He quotes a Hardy poem in which the Vicar refuses to bury the old choirmaster as he had requested because the viols wouldn't be able to play in bad weather. Mr. White claims to see the vicar's point and claims that Hardy did not. Of course, the vicar is a character written by Hardy, so he would not have been able to make a point had Hardy not been able to see it. He may well have disagreed after he saw it, but I'm sure he had more experience listening to viols played in the rain than Mr. White does.
Mr. White isn't responsible for this, but a commenter with the clearly pseudonymous name of Esmeralda Weatherwax, who may never have heard West Gallery music, equates it with the "worship band" with guitar, keyboard, and drums and banal choruses. The guitar, keyboard and drums may well be in the West Gallery tradition of using the musical talent available in the congregation, but West Gallery music for generations used only the Old and New versions of the metrical psalms, which are anything but banal. I know Francis Roads, one of the founders of the London West Gallery Quire whose performance prompted this post, and he is explicitly trying to use West Gallery music in contemporary liturgical settings to drive the "happy, clappy stuff" out.
When welcoming the demise of West Gallery music, Mr. White says, "I can't be in a minority there because viols and their like are indeed long gone from Anglican worship." This is a total non-sequitur -- nobody ever claimed that the 19th century Church of England was a democracy, so the disappearance of choirs accompanied by bands of instruments may well have been imposed by a numerical minority.

And now to the matters of opinion:

Mr. White's brief review of the performance he heard was, "They turned up with a batch of 18th-century-style wind and brass (serpent included), and a lot of lusty voices; and I can't deny that it was fun, sort of. But spiritual, no." I can't dispute this view of this particular performance, since Mr. White was there and I wasn't. But I challenge anyone to listen to "Egypt" or "Poole" and not have a spiritual experience overlaying the dread of death, and the joy embodied in Gibralter surely transcends "fun".
I see no point in arguing with Mr. White about whether the West Gallery tradition is better or worse than the high choral evensong tradition. If a church has a congregation that wants to praise God with music, the church may well be better off using the musical talents actually available to it than trying to ape a church with a larger budget, a better organ, and a different population of singers. Mr. White and Ms Weatherwax want to dismiss the musical and liturgical value of what the rural churches came up with and I don't.
Mr. White says, "Let's face it, the 18th and early 19th centuries were not the church's finest moment in this country, and the West Gallery tradition sums up everything that was wrong." I agree that the Church of England, even prodded by the best of the Dissenting tradition, performed badly in a lot of the crises of that time. But I doubt that more little boys in surplices who could sing unaccompanied would have helped.

Report from the March 25 concert

Laura Conrad — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:15:29 +0000

Laura Conrad, John Maloney, Anne Kazlauskas performing "Shakespeare's Neighbors" on March 25, 2012.

Short version: it was a great space to sing in, not as large an audience as we'd have liked, but they seemed to enjoy what we did.

There aren't as many photographs as from the previous week, since the photographer was performing, but see the video below, and here are some sound clips:

Pictures from the March 18 concert

Laura Conrad — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:32:30 +0000

Laura, John, and Anne

I meant these to go on yesterday’s post, but I put it up without the pictures and then had to spend the rest of the day on other things. So here are the pictures.

Laura Conrad, Director, alto voice

Anne Kazlauskas, Mezzo soprano voice

John Maloney, baritone voice, bass dulcian

Jonathan and Kristin Gilbert, readers

Report on the March 18 concert

Laura Conrad — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:47:05 +0000

How did it go

The short answer is that everybody had a good time. Unfortunately, the camera got packed up before the party got going, so you can't see the audience and performers staying around to continue to enjoy themselves, or the glass harmonica party music provided by our hostess, Vera Meyer.

A longer answer is that the performers agreed that we had done a lot of good things musically, but had missed a few things that we wanted to do. And we agreed that we've gotten really good at recovering from mistakes, and we wished we could get a bit better at not making the mistakes in the first place.

The bottom line is that I was catching myself smiling about it for most of the next two days.

What it sounded like

Cease, mine eyes

Love learns by laughing

So if this looks like fun...

Come on Sunday, March 25, 2012, to the repeat performance at Gallery 263, 263 Pearl St., Cambridge, MA. It might be even better than last Sunday.

News of the week of February 21, 2012

Laura Conrad — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:55:13 +0000

Meeting report

We played:

The Scottish Psalter, 1635: WIGTOWN (One who is all unfit to count)
MEINE HOFFNUNG
Genevan Psalter, 1551: ST. MICHAEL
Wilbye, Lady, if I behold,
Rore, Signor mio caro and Carità di signore,
Holborne, Heigh ho holiday.
Ravenscroft, Now God be with old Simeon
Berg, Let us drink and be merry

Schedule

Here's the schedule for the next couple of months:

Tuesday, February 28, No meeting
Tuesday, March 6, regular meeting. (Anne has agreed to open up.)
Tuesday March 13 regular meeting
Sunday, March 18, Concert: Shakespeare's Neighbors 3 pm at 521 Fellsway East, Malden
Tuesday March 20 regular meeting
Sunday, March 25 Concert: Shakespeare's Neighbors 7pm at 263 Pearl St., Cambridge
Tuesdays March 27, April 3, 10 and 17, Regular meetings
Tuesdays March 24 and May 1, meetings restricted to and compulsory for performers at the Walk for Hunger
Sunday, May 6 10am to 3pm, Walk for Hunger

Walk for Hunger

Remember that you should let me know as soon as possible whether you want to play at the Walk for Hunger. A lot of what we're thinking about playing is five part music, and we shouldn't work on that unless we're going to have at least five performers.

Another Concert Announcement

Or more specifically, an announcement of another performance of the same concert. Vera Meyer is graciously allowing us to perform Shakespeare's Neighbors in her living room, at 3pm on Sunday, March 18. It's free and open to the public, and there will be a pot luck supper following the concert. Please come, and bring all your friends.

Concert Announcement: March 25

Laura Conrad — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:19:24 +0000

The Cantabile Renaissance Band will be performing "Shakespeare's neighbors: an evening with Thomas Morley, William Shakespeare, and others" on Sunday, March 25 at 7pm at the 263 Gallery, 263 Pearl St., Cambridge, MA.

This performance will include the complete Morley Canzonets to three voyces, interspersed with readings from Romeo and Juliet, Phillip Sidney, and The Aminta by Tasso.

For more details, see the concert webpage.

There's a flyer you can print and paper your neighborhood with and give to all your friends.

We are trying to set up other performances of this program, which I will announce on this list as we finalize the arrangements. If you have an idea for somewhere West or South of the central metropolitan Boston area where we could do it, let me know.

News of the week of February 14, 2012

Laura Conrad — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:58:03 +0000

Meeting Report

We played:

Scottish Psalter, 1615: York and Psalm 80
Campian: When the god of merrie love, and Though your strangeness frets my heart
Weelkes, Come, come let's begin
Morley, Sing we and chant it,
Arcadelt , Je ne suis pas si sot
Courtois , Petit Jacquet
Cider Round

Schedule

We will be meeting as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at my place with the following exceptions:

Tuesday February 28 will not be a dropin rehearsal, as the Morley group will pre-empt that time.
On March 6, I will be working at the polls for the presidential primary, so someone will have to open up if we want to meet that night.
The meetings in March and April will concentrate on the Walk for Hunger program. The meetings of April 24 and May 1 will be limited to (and compulsory for) the performers at the Walk for Hunger.
On Sunday, May 6, we'll be playing between 10am and 3pm. You shouldn't sign up unless you can be there at least between noon and 3pm.

Next week, February 21, will probably be our last meeting for a while where we will not be concentrating on the Walk for Hunger program, and where we will have a new piece to sightread. So if you have ideas about what you'd like to do, either for the new piece or for old pieces that aren't suitable for the Walk program, let me know.

Walk for Hunger

We will be performing again this year, as we have every year since 1999, at the Walk for Hunger, in a beautiful spot on the Charles River, at the Cambridge-Watertown line. Unless you're a major rock star, it's probably your only opportunity to perform for tens of thousands of people.

Let me know if you want to play. If you do, let me know what you would like to play.

I'm leaning towards an all-English program, with some Morley, Weelkes, Holborne, Dowland and Byrd. Let me know your likes and dislikes in that range. Also, if that would leave out your favorite upbeat walking music, let me know about that.