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Song and dance in Renaissance Spain
Piffaro's "Music From 17th-Century Spain'
Tom Purdom
Why did the guitar become the instrument we associate with Spain?
During its final outing of the season, Piffaro worked with three guests who play lute and guitar, and they touched on that historical conundrum during their pre-concert lecture. In most of Europe, the lute overshadowed the guitar's early versions. The guitar prevailed in Spain because the lute is descended from a Moorish instrument, the ud. After the Christians drove the Moors out of Spain, the lute slipped into second place because the Spanish considered it a Muslim instrument.
The program focused on theater music in 17th-Century Spain, and Piffaro's musicians gave it their all-out treatment. In addition to the three lute and guitar virtuosos, they augmented their forces with two star-level guest vocalists and a violinist who doubled as dancer and mime.
The evening got off to a good start with a bit of period humor. Soprano Ellen Hargis sang a song about a woman's confession while violinist Julie Andrijeski mimed the woman and Piffaro regular Tom Zajac displayed appropriately salacious priestly responses.
Sleeping love
After that the program floundered for a bit, as if it was searching for an overall direction. It fell into shape during one of those quiet, beautiful moments that have given me some of my best memories of Piffaro events. Countertenor Drew Minter sang a gentle song about a sleeping love, with a vocal line framed by the soft pulse of the plucked instruments and the harmonic murmur of one sackbut (the early music trombone) blended with three woodwinds.
Piffaro followed that interlude of sheer loveliness with "Pastoral entertainments," a section that featured dances, battle music, a Venus and Adonis dialogue accompanied by drums and winds, and some wonderful moments when the violin played frantic rustic tunes over the drone of bagpipes and the high voices of showy flutes. The concert took off and stayed on course for the rest of the evening.
No formal concerts
Piffaro didn't try to replicate a 17th-Century courtly entertainment. As Piffaro likes to remind its audiences, there were no sit-down formal concerts in that era. The music Piffaro plays is hardly ever "pure music." In its own day, it was embedded in the religious and secular life of courts, villages and towns.
Instead, Piffaro tried here to create the effect of such an event "in concert form." The result was a song-and-dance variety show that achieved the underlying aim of most Piffaro programs: It put the music into a context that helps us receive it in the way it was meant to be received.
Watch this woman
The three guests occupied the center of attention in the plucked instrument section, but the group included another Piffaro regular. Christa Patton reinforced the guitars with the special sound of the small Renaissance harp and contributed a beautiful solo in the second half. Patton conducted the extensive research required by a concert like this; she also designed the program, wrote the program notes and switched to the wind section for some pieces.
According to her bio, Patton studied the Baroque harp (on a Fulbright scholarship) with an Italian specialist in historical harps, and she's currently working on a doctorate in early music keyboard instruments. I'm tempted to call her a Renaissance Renaissance musician, but my spell-checker will probably object.
During its final outing of the season, Piffaro worked with three guests who play lute and guitar, and they touched on that historical conundrum during their pre-concert lecture. In most of Europe, the lute overshadowed the guitar's early versions. The guitar prevailed in Spain because the lute is descended from a Moorish instrument, the ud. After the Christians drove the Moors out of Spain, the lute slipped into second place because the Spanish considered it a Muslim instrument.
The program focused on theater music in 17th-Century Spain, and Piffaro's musicians gave it their all-out treatment. In addition to the three lute and guitar virtuosos, they augmented their forces with two star-level guest vocalists and a violinist who doubled as dancer and mime.
The evening got off to a good start with a bit of period humor. Soprano Ellen Hargis sang a song about a woman's confession while violinist Julie Andrijeski mimed the woman and Piffaro regular Tom Zajac displayed appropriately salacious priestly responses.
Sleeping love
After that the program floundered for a bit, as if it was searching for an overall direction. It fell into shape during one of those quiet, beautiful moments that have given me some of my best memories of Piffaro events. Countertenor Drew Minter sang a gentle song about a sleeping love, with a vocal line framed by the soft pulse of the plucked instruments and the harmonic murmur of one sackbut (the early music trombone) blended with three woodwinds.
Piffaro followed that interlude of sheer loveliness with "Pastoral entertainments," a section that featured dances, battle music, a Venus and Adonis dialogue accompanied by drums and winds, and some wonderful moments when the violin played frantic rustic tunes over the drone of bagpipes and the high voices of showy flutes. The concert took off and stayed on course for the rest of the evening.
No formal concerts
Piffaro didn't try to replicate a 17th-Century courtly entertainment. As Piffaro likes to remind its audiences, there were no sit-down formal concerts in that era. The music Piffaro plays is hardly ever "pure music." In its own day, it was embedded in the religious and secular life of courts, villages and towns.
Instead, Piffaro tried here to create the effect of such an event "in concert form." The result was a song-and-dance variety show that achieved the underlying aim of most Piffaro programs: It put the music into a context that helps us receive it in the way it was meant to be received.
Watch this woman
The three guests occupied the center of attention in the plucked instrument section, but the group included another Piffaro regular. Christa Patton reinforced the guitars with the special sound of the small Renaissance harp and contributed a beautiful solo in the second half. Patton conducted the extensive research required by a concert like this; she also designed the program, wrote the program notes and switched to the wind section for some pieces.
According to her bio, Patton studied the Baroque harp (on a Fulbright scholarship) with an Italian specialist in historical harps, and she's currently working on a doctorate in early music keyboard instruments. I'm tempted to call her a Renaissance Renaissance musician, but my spell-checker will probably object.
What, When, Where
Piffaro, the Renaissance Band: Music from 17th-Century Spain by Briceno, de Murcia, Guerrero, Velasco et al. Ellen Hargis, soprano; Drew Minter, countertenor; Julie Andrijeski, violin; Pat O’Brien, Daniel Swenberg, Charles Weaver, lute and guitar. Joan Kimball, Robert Wiemken, co-directors. April 16, 2010 at St. Mark’s Church, 1625 Locust St. (215) 235-8469 or www.piffaro.org.
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