Coming up in Philly music: Singing ducks and living pictures in ‘A French Noël’

Piffaro’s Christmas concert is one of the must-do items on my personal list of Christmas customs. The colors of their Renaissance instruments evoke all the glow and festivity of the season and they build their programs around appealing approaches to the music created in European courts and towns between 1400 and 1600.

A French treasure in Philly

This year they’re delving into the elegance and airiness of the French Christmas tradition with a program that has a Philadelphia connection. Piffaro has frequently based programs on the manuscripts stored in European churches, palaces, and libraries. This program will be based on a manuscript filed in the music collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia. The manuscript, known as Lewis E211, is a 1520 compilation of the words of French noëls, the French equivalent of Christmas carols. The illustrations scattered through the noëls depict humans and animals dancing and playing instruments.

A manuscript comes to life

Piffaro has added appropriate Renaissance music to the words and combined the noëls with liturgical religious music. The concert will reproduce a period French Christmas Eve church service, a festive event that included noëls and visual elements in addition to the Mass. The vocals will be provided by Les Canards Chantants (The Singing Ducks), a six-voice early-music group that has been featured in some of Piffaro’s must successful programs.

As for the visuals, two of Piffaro’s regular partners, actors Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell, will reproduce the illustrations in the library manuscript with tableaux vivant, or living pictures, which sometimes punctuated these Masses.

Beyond Baroque

Piffaro is one of the performing-arts organizations included in the online Google Cultural Institute. Piffaro was founded in 1983, as an offshoot of the University of Pennsylvania early music program, and it occupies a unique position in the early-music world. Most period-instrument groups play Baroque music. Piffaro plays Renaissance music on a menagerie of Renaissance instruments that range from the gentleness of recorders and lutes to the boisterousness of bagpipes and buzzing krumhorns. Its musicians all play several instruments, like the members of German Renaissance town bands did.

Piffaro, the Renaissance Band will present A French Noël on December 21 at 7:30pm at the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral (23 S. 38th Street); on December 22 at 7:30pm at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill (8855 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia); and on December 23 at 3pm at Immanuel Church Highlands (Wilmington, Delaware). Tickets ($29-$49; youth and full-time students free) are available online, by calling 215-235-8469, and at the door.