The Annual

 Glebe Music Festival

In conjunction with The Glebe Society Inc

Programme
Saturday 23rd March at 5pm
St Johns Church, Glebe,
Josie and the Emeralds

Texts
Hosanna to the Son of David.
Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna, thou that sittest in the highest heavens.
Hosanna in excelsis Deo.

O, Care, thou wilt dispatch me,
If music does not match thee.
Fa la la.
So deadly dost thou sting me,
Mirth only help can bring me.
Fa la la.

Hence, Care! Thou art too cruel,
Come music, sick man’s jewel.
Fa la la.
His force had well nigh slain me,
But thou must now sustain me.
Fa la la.

Ecce Homo
Pilate: Behold the man!
Crowd: Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!
Pilate: Shall I crucify your king?
Crowd: Take him away! Take him away! Take him away!
Pilate: What evil did he do?
Crowd: Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!
Pilate: Behold your king!
Crowd: We have no king except Caesar.
Pilate: Will I release him at Passover?
Crowd: Not this one. Not this one. Not this one but Barbaras!
Pilate: What did Jesus do?
Crowd: Take him away! Take him away! Take him away!
Pilate: What evil did he do?
Crowd: Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!

Haec dies quam fecit Dominus:
This is the day which the Lord hath made:
let us be glad and rejoice therein.
Alleluia.

Traveling to the Question,
Traveling to questioning,
Questioning is not an adventure
But homecoming.

O Vis Eternitatis (Hildegard)
O strength of eternity,
You ordained all things in your heart.
By your Word all things were created as you willed,
And your own Word put on vestments woven of flesh
Cut from a woman born of Adam
To bleach the agony out of his clothes.
O how great is the Saviour’s kindness!
From the breath of God he took flesh unfettered
(for sin was not in it)
to set everything free
and bleach the agony out of his clothes.
Glorify the Father, the Spirit and the Son.
He bleached the agony out of his clothes.

Albanese
This sea
So black
Has no lights on the waves
They are closed, cold eyes

And I see you
Sweet nana bobò (baby’s name)
Sleeping tight
Like a child bobò
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye...

If there is a great wind
On the boat
That rapidly blows away
Desires and great hopes
Then its breath shatters me

And I see you
Sweet nana bobò
Your hands
Are cold bobò
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye...

And I see
Far away from me
And I feel
Inside of me
Flashing lights, shrieking women
I see, and then feel the impossible rage that
You left me with
Because you departed this world just like that
And I find myself without
your eyes, your lips, your hair

Now I also smell
The odour of diesel
It’s a memory that takes me
Straight to the depths of my pain
Your hands
Sweet nana bobò
They are profound tears

And I see
Far away from me
And I sense inside of me
Flashing lights, shrieking women
I see, and then feel the impossible rage that
You left me with
Because you departed this world just like that
And I find myself without
your eyes, your lips, your hair
(trans: Brooke Green and Diana Maestri)

Biographies
Mary Springfels, treble and bass viols
Mary Springfels remembers hearing New York Pro Musica perform early music for the first time when she was 14 years old. She immediately fell in love with it and began learning early music instruments in college. For most of her adult life, Mary Springfels has devoted herself to the performance and teaching of early music repertoires. She earned her stripes performing with many influential pioneering ensembles, including the New York Pro Musica, the Elizabethan Enterprise, Concert Royal, and the Waverly Consort. For 20 years she directed the innovative Newberry Consort, and can be heard on dozens of recordings. She has taught and performed in summer festivals throughout the US, among them the San Francisco, Madison, and Amherst Early Music Festivals, the Texas Toot, the annual Conclaves of the Viola da Gamba Society of America, and the Pinewoods Early Music Week.

Belinda Montgomery, soprano
Graduating with Honours in Music from the University of Sydney in 1997, Belinda specialises in early music and contemporary repertoire. She studied for many years with acclaimed soprano, Jennifer Bates. Belinda performs regularly with early music ensembles including The Marais Project, The Sydney Consort and Salut! Baroque as well as contemporary vocal specialists, Halcyon. Belinda has also featured as a soloist with The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Cantillation, Sydney Chamber Choir and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. She is a founding member of Pinchgut Opera, appearing in solo roles and as an ensemble member in many of their productions

Josie Ryan, soprano
After graduating from Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Josie Ryan completed her Masters degree specializing in Early Vocal Music and Historical Performance Practice at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. She has performed as an ensemble singer with various leading groups across Europe, including The Tallis Scholars, The Amsterdam Baroque Choir and Collegium Vocale Gent. During her 12 years in Europe Josie sang regularly with Pinchgut Opera duringannual visits to Sydney, and now lives here once again since November 2009. Josie has recorded numerous CDs and DVDs and is frequently engaged as a soloist for other ensembles including Australian Baroque Brass, The Choir of Christ Church St Laurence, Coro Innominata, The Oriana Chorale, and The Marais Project.

Brooke Green, treble viol, tenor viol, vielle, director
Brooke graduated with a Masters in Early Music Performance from the Early Music Institute, Bloomington, Indiana University, where she studied viol and vielle with Wendy Gillespie and Mary Springfels. As a baroque violinist, Brooke studied at the Royal Conservatory , The Hague with Lucy van Dael and in London with Micaela Comberti where she then spent several years performing with ensembles such as The Hanover Band, The Brandenburg Consort, The London Handel Orchestra and The City of London Chamber Players. In Australia, Brooke has performed as a soloist with The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, led various baroque ensembles and played in others led by Fiona Ziegler. From 1993 – 2006, as director of Backgammon, Brooke directed many innovative programs of music on period instruments, in London, Sydney, Tasmania and Honolulu. In June 2011, Brooke founded Josie and The Emeralds.

Fiona Ziegler, tenor viol
Fiona Ziegler has been an Assistant Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony since 1995. As one of Sydney’s leading baroque violinists, Fiona has performed with Ensemble de la Reine, the Marias Project and regularly with her own baroque trio, Concertato. She was a founding member of The Australian Fortepiano Trio and Trio Pollastri, and has made regular performances with the Renaissance Players, Sydney Chamber Choir, Coro Innominata, the Sydney Soloists and the
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Since 2006 Fiona has been a regular guest of the acclaimed Grevillea Ensemble, and in 2005 Fiona took up the mandolin and became a member of the Sydney Mandolin Orchestra and the Antipodean Mandolin Ensemble. She also leads the Chanterelle String Quartet.

Laura Moore, treble and bass viol
Laura Moore completed her Bachelor of Music Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2010 under the direction of Josephine Vains. During this time she participated in various master classes with Jordi Savall, Jamie Hey and Stanley Richie. In 2011, Laura was selected to participate in the Ironwood Developing Artists Program where she performed works from the 17th and 18th Centuries on period instruments. Laura is also a passionate teacher and values the importance of musical education, particularly in rural areas.

Margo Adelson, bass viol
Sydney University Music (Hons) graduate, Margo Adelson, has had many years of experience as a singer, keyboard player (piano, organ and harpsichord) and viola da gambist. On viol she has performed with Sydney Chamber Orchestra, Sounds Baroque, Early Dance Consort, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Jacaranda Consort, Arafura Ensemble (Darwin) and Fleur de Lys. She currently teaches piano and musicianship at MLC Burwood, as well as at her home studio, and conducts the Glenbrook Community Singers.

Programme Notes:

I am delighted to be able to arrange this concert to coincide with Mary Springfel’s visit to Australia. In 2008, during the second semester of my study at Bloomington, Indiana, Mary gave me quite demanding lessons in viol and vielle. I’m still trying to absorb those lessons! In this programme we celebrate the season, with music for Lent, Palm Sunday and Easter. We also aim to tease your brain with some witty madrigals and Renaissance instrumental works. On the contemporary side, Albanese is a protest song and the other works – well, they’re hard to categorise. Suffice to say, spirits of the past loom large but hopefully only haunt in the gentlest of ways.

We begin with music for Palm Sunday: Thomas Weelkes’ Hosanna to the Son of David: a popular work in church choral circles, particularly admired for the way it builds up to a resplendent conclusion. This work survives in four secular manuscripts and there are some indications that Weelkes’ may have intended this for a grand courtly occasion. One clue can be found in his text setting. Rather than directly quoting from biblical texts, he avoids biblical acclamations referring to Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, simply selecting three verses on the subject and adding a Latin peroration.

Weelke’s innovative side can be also heard in the extreme chromaticism and abundant word painting of his madrigals O Care, Thou Wilt dispatch Me and Hence, Care Thou Art Too Cruel. The Italian madrigal had been recently introduced to England and he was among a small group of composers who began to adopt Italian techniques such as adding chromaticism to falling intervals to heighten the already popular obsession with melancholy. Even his Fa la las are darkly subdued, unlike contemporary more cheerful settings.

John Jenkins’ genial personality has often been remarked upon and this is evident in the sunny opening of the Pavan we are playing today. But one should never take him for granted: in the third strophe of this Pavan, there are surprising harmonic twists. In his Fantasies such as the one we are playing, he seems to delight in creating a turbulent world where nothing can be taken for granted. Seemingly straightforward themes can be varied by one note or one beat, rhythmic displacements abound, points of imitation are never quite where one expects and so the player always has to be alert but seemingly not alarmed!

The French 17th century composer Bouzignac typically composed motets in a retrogressive 16th century style. But he was innovative with his creation of dramatic scenes such Ecce homo. In this passion motet, compiled from the four Gospels, Pontius Pilate asks the crowd what he should do with Jesus. Originally for voices, here the part of Pilate is sung by Josie while the viols, led by Belinda represent the crowd’s response.

Hundreds of In Nomines can be found in English 17th-century manuscripts, reflecting a particularly English fascination with the genre. The In Nomine is a polyphonic (many-voiced) setting of the chant derived from the Gloria tibi Trinitas in a mass by John Taverner. Picforth’s In Nomine is one of the most radical rhythmic experiments of his time: each part is given just one time value which only aligns with the other parts over large stretches of time. The harmonic effect is mesmerizing and hypnotic: something that Steve Reich and other minimalist composers would surely envy…

The dissonant cross relations or chromatic clashes in Robert Parsons In Nomine suggest he had something to complain about. Perhaps there was the strain of being a secret Catholic in Protestant England? Or perhaps he truly was a Renaissance ‘choleric’ personality, quick to anger, producing too much yellow bile. The piece begins with a sense of reasonable argument, with the treble viol pitted against the lower three parts. The momentum grows until moderation gives way to furiousness with the lower voices often breaking ranks and appearing to henpeck each other. For this performance, we have restored the original text to the In Nomine line in order for it to be sung and perhaps Josie is our impartial judge finally bringing these disputes to a sense of order.

Captain Tobias Hume was a Scottish composer and viol player. Much of his life remains unknown but since he was never accepted into court circles as a musician or didn’t seek to do so it seems that he was forced to work as a mercenary (professional soldier). He published two major collections of mostly solo viol works, trying to raise the profile of the viol to an equivalent or perhaps even superior status of the lute.

Christopher Tye left twenty-one settings of the In Nomine, which are distinctive for their clear shape and structure, along with a range of styles and textures. Christus resurgens can be found in one of the same sources as his In Nomines but this work is based on the plainsong melody from the Sarum liturgy for Easter Day. (played by Laura on tenor viol)

In William Byrd’s Fantasia:Two parts in one in the 4th above the two treble parts play in canon (imitation) throughout. It appears to be a stoically academic work until we reach the mid point where each of the treble viol parts is set to what was known as The ‘Sick tune.’ This derives from a ballad called Captain Car recounting a bad night at sea:

Sick, sick and very sick,
And sick and like to die;
The sickest night that I abode,
Good Lord have mercy on me.

Originally for voice, trumpet and bass viol, Albanese appears on the CD Travel Notes featuring the brothers Andrea and Paolo Pandolfo. It was composed and semi-improvised by the group, in response to the desperate conditions suffered by Albanian refugees attempting to make the sea voyage to Italy. I transcribed Albanese from the CD and made this arrangement for Josie and the Emeralds as a protest against the harsh policies of the Australian government and the Coalition Party towards refugees. When I wrote to Andrea Pandolfo, seeking performance permission for this arrangement (which he kindly granted,) he asked that we dedicate the song “to boatpeople everywhere.” We have since had a few more emails about what he refers to as the “world wide boat people tragedy.” I asked if he would write a few words about the song and he replied: “When I wrote Albanese I was that mother with her little daughter in her arms.”

Shades of Presence Past is an evolving work with ghostly themes. There is also a notion that we in the 21st century can only hope to evoke fragments of the past and these musical motifs will inevitably be transformed by our own dreams. Spirits and Dreams begins with a few renaissance spirits lurking about and these become overlaid with haughty baroque ones. Finally, they all just disappear in a puff of smoke, as spirits do. Graceful Ghost pays homage to William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag and while it bears no musical connection, I hope it recreates something of that haunting spirit. Spirits and Dreams and Graceful Ghost were premiered in our recent concert at the Glebe Music Festival 2012 and today we are premiering the third but not necessarily the last movement: L’esprit rigole. I have subtitled it The Ghost of Inspector Gadget because Fiona says it reminds her of the theme music to the Inspector Gadget TV show!

Traveling to the Question is an anonymous commission that after some discussion was reduced to an eclectic brief. Could I write something that would include chant, Nick Cave’s Carny Song and this quote from Science and Reflection by the philosopher Martin Heidegger? “Traveling in the direction that is a way toward that which is worthy of questioning is not adventure but homecoming.”

Thinking about how to set this very dense text brought up various questions: Could it be half sung, half chanted? If set to chant, what type of chant would suit? Did the text need to be quoted in full? This problem circled around me for quite a while until finally I realised that it was possible to set a lyric version to the melody of The Carny Song:
Traveling to the question, (traveling to questioning,)
Questioning is not an adventure but homecoming.

The Carny Song paints a bleak environment of a down and out travelling carnival troupe. The Carny (Carnival Man) is a mysterious figure, who suddenly disappears one day, leaving behind his old skin-and-bone nag, Sorrow. When Sorrow dies, the boss, Bellini decides they can’t afford to carry ‘dead weight’ and orders the dwarves to dig a shallow grave. But the body of Sorrow soon floats to the marshy surface, making the dwarves regret they had not done a better job. They are surprised the Carny has not reappeared: one senses he might have magical powers. Somehow his revered but uncertain status reminded me of Colm Toibin’s novel Testament of Mary where Jesus is seen by his mother as moving between rationality and irrationality.

Hildegard also a questioner, and suffered for her religious convictions and unconventional interpretation of biblical texts. In her chant O Vis Eternitatis she celebrates the Incarnation itself, not Christ’s death, as the central liberating moment in history; and she sees the fallen world freed not so much from sin as from suffering.

In Traveling to the Question I have tried to combine these two visions, whereby the transformative one of Hildegard wins out, mostly!

Brooke Green

Instruments
Mary Springfel’s treble viol by Dietrich Kessler, London, 1986, after Henry Jaye, c.1630
Brooke Green’s treble viol by Jane Julier, Devon, England, 2001, after Henry Jaye, c.1630
Brooke Green’s vielle by Judith Kraft, Paris, 2010, after late 14th cent. Italian iconography
Fiona Ziegler’s tenor viol by Ingo Muthesius, Berlin, 1968
Laura Moore’s bass viol by John Hall, Sydney, 1987
Margo Adelson’s bass viol by John Hall, Sydney, 1977
Tenor viol by John Hall, Sydney, 1977 (on loan from The Renaissance Players)
6-String Bass viol by John Hall, Sydney (on loan from Rosemary Parle)

http://www.josieandtheemeralds.com

Paul Nolan's review in the Sydney Arts Guide