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Event
BALTIMORE CONSORT'S Gut, Wind, & Wire Trio plays Renaissance Early Music
The Gut, Wind, and Wire Trio of Baltimore Consort begins a short tour of our Northern coastal region with a concert at PCA. We are honored to have them perform their particular form of early Renaissance music, on period instruments, for the audience in our greater Piedmont community.
With 40+ years together, the Baltimore Consort is one of the most well-known and beloved early music ensembles in the US, performing early music from England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Spain, while focusing on the relationship between folk and art song and dance. "Gut, Wind, and Wire," an instrumental trio formed by founding members of the Consort, features Ronn McFarlane on lute (Gut), Mindy Rosenfeld on wooden flutes, fifes, and pipes (Wind), and Mark Cudek on cittern (Wire), bass viol, and percussion. This trio performs popular music of the Renaissance from England, Scotland, Italy, and France, as well as traditional Celtic music and Grammy-nominated original music by Ronn McFarlane.
Fascinated by the variety of timbres that instruments can produce, Renaissance musicians developed a wide variety of sound colors, ranging from the almost vocal sound of the bowed strings to the chirpy, bird-like sound of the high winds, the twang of the wire-strung cittern, and the buzz of the crumhorns. The sixteenth century musicians love of variety can be seen in the vast array of instruments imitated by organ stops of the period, by surviving instruments and pictures of instruments, and also by eyewitness accounts of the cornucopia of instruments used to provide music for the lavish banquets of royalty. When a group of instruments is played together, whether they be all of the same family or different, a "consort" is formed.
Their instruments were the same as those of the Baltimore Consort: the sultry treble viol (or violin), the ethereal flute (or recorder), the noble lute, the sprightly and cheerful cittern, the deep bandora, and the stately bass viol a combination which became known in the 20th century as a broken consort because it mixed instruments from different families. The term itself broken consort although invented later, nevertheless has an historic resonance: Shakespeare spoke of broken music," by which he meant breaking the sound or devising a melody which is broken (made ornamental) through division into many small notes.
The Baltimore Consort was founded to perform instrumental music of Shakespeare's time. Although later joined by a singer, the group's experience of rehearsing purely instrumentally forged its identity as an ensemble dedicated to exploiting the diverse sound colors offered by gut- and wire-strung, plucked and bowed strings, and transverse and end-blown flutes and recorders, capped reeds and percussion.
Shakespeare's music tapped into the popular repertory of the Elizabethan period the tunes heard in taverns, on street corners, in the theater, and accompanying dancing. Thomas Morley's The First Book of Consort Lessons (1599), together with the manuscript part-books of Matthew Holmes, are the mother sources for consort arranging in that time, and thus provide the music which the Baltimore Consort initially performed.
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LocationPiedmont Center for he Arts (View)
801 Magnolia Avenue
Piedmont, CA 94611
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 6 |
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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Contact
Accessibility
Fully ADA compliant
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