[Theme music begins]

Welcome to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.
Picture, if you will, the public spaces of the early modern era, back in the late 15th to 17th centuries. You might see and hear melodious fishmongers and greengrocers in the market squares; the sounds of activities portrayed by painters like the Bruegels, with village scenes and peasant dances; or Rembrandt’s City Waites keeping an eye on the neighbors. Street musicians themselves pop up pretty often images from this era, so join us this hour in imagining what the artists may have heard as they sketched their subjects. Then, on our featured release, Odhecaton and Paolo Da Col bring us the luscious, equal voice polyphony of a little-known music master from the hills of Tuscany.

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MUSIC TRACK
The Cries of London
Theatre of Voices, Fretwork
Harmonia Mundi | HMU907214DI (2006)
Orlando Gibbons
Tr. 7 Go from my window (4:42)

Fretwork performed a set of variations on the popular tune “Go from my window” by Orlando Gibbons. Though its lyrics involve a woman warning her lover not to hang around at inopportune times, the perspective of looking out a window suggests the early modern streetscapes behind this hour’s program.

One of the most common depictions of community life we have from Early Modern artists is the market scene. Painters like Pieter Aertsen, active in Amsterdam during the mid-sixteenth century, took advantage of the combination of still life and dynamic human interaction found in the open markets that were everywhere prior to the industrial revolution. Aertsen’s 1550 painting known as “Fragment of an Ecce Homo” is one of many that used contemporary marketplaces as a setting for biblical scenes and allegories. It depicts throngs of pedestrians among barrels, baskets, and wagons overflowing with produce, meats, and baked goods. / Another of Aertsen’s (paintings) from 1569 depicts a woman holding a green cabbage beside a mound of colorful fruits and vegetables for sale in front of a tavern. / The atmosphere of the marketplace inspired musicians as well as visual artists, as we’ll hear in Orlando Gibbon’s “Cryes of London.”

MUSIC TRACK
The Cries of London
Theatre of Voices, Fretwork
Harmonia Mundi | HMU907214DI (2006)
Orlando Gibbons
Tr. 1 The Cryes of London (7:08)

Fretwork and Theatre of Voices with Orlando Gibbons’ “Cryes of London.”

Gibbons wasn’t the only English composer to attempt a musical painting of the London streets. His contemporaries Thomas Weelkes, Richard Dering, and Thomas Ravenscroft all composed their own “cries.” This compositional fad may owe to an earlier version by Clément Janequin, that lover of programmatic songs, who in 1528 gave us La Bataille, or the Battle of Marignan, that inspired centuries of militaristic art music. We’ll hear Janequin’s decidedly less violent soundscape, the “Cries of Paris,” first published in 1530.

MUSIC TRACK
Les Cris de Paris
Ensemble Clément Janequin
Harmonia Mundi | HMA1951072 (2005)
Clément Janequin
Tr. 1 Voulez ouyr les cris de Paris (5:47)

Clément Janequin’s “Voulez ouyr les cris de Paris; Would you like to hear the cries of Paris?” performed by Ensemble Clément Janequin.
The frequency with which the cries of the oyster seller and their seafood-hawking compatriots feature in these compositions calls to mind the work of another Dutch painter, Joachim Beuckelaer’s “Fish Market” of 1568. Arrayed on tables in the foreground overseen by their proprietors is an assortment of fresh fish, and groups of shoppers with baskets crowd the streets behind them.

MUSIC TRACK
New Fashions: Cries and Ballads of London
Circa 1500, Redbyrd, Nancy Hadden
CRD Records | CRD3487 (1997)
Thomas Ravenscroft
Tr. 1 New oysters (1:14)
Tr. 22 New oysters (1:23)

Nancy Hadden led Circa 1500 and Redbyrd on two versions of “New oysters” by Thomas Ravenscroft.

Waking up early to get the best pickings at the farmer’s market might be something that connects us to the citizens of the past, but it’s not the only soundscape we get from painted street scenes. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, working in the 1550s and 60s, and his son, Pieter the Younger, who lived into the 1630s, are known for their detailed landscapes and village scenes. Many of these incorporated musicians, but even the ones that don’t, involve subjects that are also treated in music of the day. Bruegel the Elder’s “Children’s Games,” painted in 1560, is a bird’s-eye-view of kids of all ages engaged in a variety of games and pastimes. A group on the left plays “Blind Man’s Bluff,” a blindfolded tag game similar to today’s “Marco Polo.” This game also shows up in music around the same time, from settings of Guarini’s Pastor fido to Purcell’s Fairy Queen.

MUSIC TRACK
Il gioco della cieca
Concerto di Margherita
Arcana | A498 (2022)
Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi
Tr. 1. Cieco amor non ti cred’io (1:04)

Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi’s madrigal on a text from the blind man’s bluff scene in Battista Guarini’s drama Il pastor fido, “Cieco Amor non ti cred’io; Blind Love, I don’t believe you. Performed by Concerto di Margherita.

Next, a tune to go with one of Pieter Bruegel the Younger’s village scenes, a “Winter landscape with skaters” from 1589.

MUSIC TRACK
Cosimo Bottegari: Il libro di canto e liuto
Santina Tommasello, Amerigo Bernardi, Gian Luca Lastrioli
Tactus | TC552701 (2001)
Cosimo Bottegari arr. Gian Luca Lastrioli
Tr. 3 L’inverno quando fiocca (2:44)

Lutenist Gian Luca Lastrioli’s arrangement of “L’inverno quando fiocca; In the winter when the snowflakes fall” from Cosimo Bottegari’s lute book, sung by Santina Tommasello.
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[Theme music begins]

Early music can mean a lot of things. What does it mean to you? Let us know your thoughts and ideas. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org, where you’ll also find playlists and an archive of past shows.

You’re listening to Harmonia . . . I’m Angela Mariani.

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(1:00) Mid Break Music Bed:

MUSIC TRACK
Consort Music & Airs for Flute
Julien Martin, Capriccio stravagante, Skip Sempé,
Paradizo | PA0001D (2006)
Samuel Scheidt
Tr. 18 Galliard Battaglia

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Welcome back… so far, we’ve heard early music that illustrates street soundscapes like the marketplace or town square, but we also have quite a few examples of Early Modern art that depict music making in these same places. Note that when we pair the word Early with Modern – “Early Modern” – it refers to what we might call the Renaissance and early 17th century era, as opposed to the term “modern art,” which we associate with the 20th century. Rembrandt’s colossal military portrait “The Night Watch” is an icon of the Dutch Golden Age, painted in 1642. On its far-right edge, we can make out a drummer, partially cut off due to the canvas being trimmed in the eighteenth century.

MUSIC TRACK
Consort Music & Airs for Flute
Julien Martin, Capriccio stravagante, Skip Sempé,
Paradizo | PA0001D (2006)
Anthony Holborne
Tr. 22 The night watch (1:35)

Skip Sempé led Capriccio Stravagante on “The night watch” by Anthony Holborne.

Though Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” features only a single drummer, musicians were commonly associated with those duties during his lifetime. Cities had been hiring musicians to alert residents of threats or emergencies for centuries, because instrumental technology suited rapid communication over moderate distances, such as alarm signals. Bands of musical watchmen, known in English-speaking regions as “waits,” might also play music to pass time on their shifts or mark the hour.

MUSIC TRACK
Waytes: English Music for a Renaissance Band
Piffaro
Navona | NV5823 (2009)
Robert Parsons
Tr. 26 The Song Called Trumpets (2:08)

Music for wind band or “waits;” Piffaro with Robert Parson’s “A Songe Called Trumpets.”

Waits also had a presence beyond the night watch during this period. Made up of instruments that were both mobile and loud enough to be heard outdoors, these bands, also called piffari in Italian and Stadtpfeifer in German, frequently participated in public ceremonies such as religious processions. Flemish painter Denis van Alsloot included a marching band of cornett, 3 shawms, dulcian, and sackbut in his depiction of a “Procession in honor of Our Lady of Sablon,” which took place in Brussels in May of 1615. Over a century earlier, a 1496 painting by Gentile Bellini of St. Mark’s Square, Venice, depicts a similar procession that took place in the 1440s. While no wind band is obvious in Bellini’s image, we know that participating in processions was a core duty of the the Pifferi del Doge, the ceremonial pipers of Venice, during the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.

MUSIC TRACK
Ein musikalisches Gipfeltreffen 1503
Capella de la Torre
Musik Museum | MMCD13030 (2017)
Henrich Isaac
Tr. 4 Vexilla regis prodeunt (3:23)

Pierre de la Rue’s setting of the hymn Vexilla regis prodeunt, Capella de la Torre and Johannes Stecher with the Wilten Boys’ Choir.

In plenty of other Early Modern streetscapes, we find musicians doing the first thing we might expect them to, which is playing for dancers. Ambrogio Laurenzetti’s late 14th-century fresco “The effects of good government in the city” from an allegorical series for the town hall of Siena centers on a circle of finely dressed townspeople with hands joined dancing to the sound of a tambourine.

MUSIC TRACK
Piffarissimo
Capella de la Torre, Katharina Bäuml
Challenge Classics | CC72631 (2014)
Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro
Tr. 1 Piva amoroso (2:06)

Katharina Bäuml led Capella de la Torre “Piva amoroso” by Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro.

Back in Holland, the Bruegels painted numerous depictions of peasant dances. Bruegel the Elder’s 1567 “Peasant dance” foregrounds a bagpiper seated on a bench beside a couple, at right, with feet raised mid-figure. One of his indoor scenes from around the same time, “The peasant wedding,” shows revelers at a banquet table serenaded by two bagpipers. His son Pieter Bruegel the Younger painted a similar occasion outdoors in 1624, again with a pair of pipers accompanying dancing.

MUSIC TRACK
Chansons et Danceries
Piffaro
Deutsche Grammophon | 00028944710724 (1996)
Etienne du Tertre
Tr. 15 Premiere suytte de Bransles d'Escosse (3:33)

Piffaro with a suite of “Scottish Brawls,” dances by Etienne du Tertre.

Our featured recording this hour is Odhecaton’s 2023 release Sabato Sancto: Paolo Aretino’s Lamentations and Responsories. Paolo Antonio Da Bivi, called Aretino, spent his entire career in Arezzo, becoming maestro of the Cathedral in 1544. We’ll hear his Benedictus for the close of the Tenebrae office during Holy Week, performed as candles are extinguished one by one.

MUSIC TRACK
Paolo Aretino: Sabbato Sancto, Lamentationes et Responsoria
Odhecaton, Paolo Da Col
Arcana | A551 (2023)
Paolo Aretino
Tr. 13 Benedictus (9:41)

Paolo Da Col led Odhecaton on a Benedictus by Paolo Aretino, from their recording Lamentations and Responsories released with Arcana in September 2023.

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Harmonia is a production of WFIU and part of the educational mission of Indiana University.
Support comes from Early Music America: a national organization that advocates and supports the historical performance of music of the past, the community of artists who create it, and the listeners whose lives are enriched by it. On the web at EarlyMusicAmerica-dot-org.

Additional resources come from the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

We welcome your thoughts about any part of this program, or about early music in general. Contact us at harmonia early music dot org. You can follow us on Facebook by searching for Harmonia Early Music.

The writer for this edition of Harmonia is Chelsey Belt.

Thanks to our studio engineer Michael Paskash, and our production team: LuAnn Johnson, Aaron Cain, and John Bailey. I’m Angela Mariani, inviting you to join us again for the next edition of Harmonia.

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