Performing Late Medieval Music in The Modern Day

02/13/18 • 30 min

Episode 6 features a pre-concert talk by Scott Metcalfe given on February 3, 2018, in Cambridge. He discusses ideas about beauty and form presented in Robert Hass's A Little Book on Form (2017) and connects them to Blue Heron's work, pondering the issues raised by a 21st-century concert performance of a piece of late medieval music whose original purpose was to enhance a sacred liturgy.

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undefined - Premieres of Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks by Nicholas Ludford (c.1490-1557) and John Mason (c.1480-1548) and Variety and Expression in the Performance of 16th-century Music -- Pre-Concert Lecture by Scott Metcalfe

Premieres of Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks by Nicholas Ludford (c.1490-1557) and John Mason (c.1480-1548) and Variety and Expression in the Performance of 16th-century Music -- Pre-Concert Lecture by Scott Metcalfe

Episode 5 features a pre-concert lecture by Blue Heron's Music Director, Scott Metcalfe. In his lecture, given on October 13, 2012, before a concert in Cambridge, Metcalfe took on a number of interesting topics. He discussed the works that were about to be given their North American Premieres (Ludford's Missa Inclina cor meum and Mason's Ave fuit prima salus), the history of the Peterhouse partbooks (which is the sole source of those pieces), why Blue Heron approaches this repertoire the way it does and finally "why music from the 16th century should be as captivating, varied and expressive as music from any other age." The lecture was supported in part by the Cambridge Society for Early Music. The Ludford and Mason works discussed in this lecture were recorded shortly after the premiere performances in October 2012, and will soon be released commercially on Blue Heron's own label, as Volume 3 of a planned set of 5 Peterhouse Partbooks recordings (BHCD1004; RELEASE DATE: October 2013). The disc will contain the world premiere recordings of all the music on the CD.

Next Episode

Sean Gallagher on Ockeghem's "Fors Seullement l'actente" and its progeny

Professor Sean Gallagher, adviser to Blue Heron’s Ockeghem@600 project, introduces the seventh program in the series, featuring Johannes Ockeghem’s song "Fors seullement l’actente" and a number of pieces based on it, including three Mass movements by Ockeghem himself and works by Pierre de la Rue and others. Prof. Gallagher also discusses the other music on the program—the song "Je ne vis onques la pareille" (probably by Gilles Binchois) and music by Alexander Agricola and Johannes Ghiselin based on it.