Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Mexican Baroque
A Concert for the Feast of St. Michael

Friday, September 29, 2017
8 p.m.
St. Basil’s Church 

PROGRAM
Symphony in G Major   Ignacio Jerusalem (1707-1769)
(Allegro-Andante-Allegro)

Introitus: Benedicite Dominum Plainchant

Kyrie  Jerusalem 
      (Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie)

Gloria    Jerusalem
     (Et in terra-Gratias agimus-Qui tollis-Quoniam-Cum sancto spiritu-Amen)

Graduale: Benedicite Dominum  Plainchant
Alleluia: Sancte Michael

Credo Jerusalem 
  (Patrem omnipotentem-Et incarnatus-Crucifixus-Et resurrexit)
Offertorium: Stetit Angelus Plainchant
Sanctus   Jerusalem
Villancico: Que le diremos Juan Frances de Iribarren (1699-1767)


Agnus Dei Jerusalem

Communio: Benedicite omnes Angeli Jerusalem

Villancico: El Dìa del Corpus Anonymous (Bolivia, 18th century)


ALL DONATIONS COLLECTED AT TONIGHT’S CONCERT WILL GO TO MEXICAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF. THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROSITY. 
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE SPEAK TO ONE OF OUR STUDENT VOLUNTEERS.

A census of 1790 put the population of Mexico City at 113,000 souls, this at a time when Madrid the capital of the Spanish Empire, had perhaps 180,000 inhabitants. It should be no surprise, then, that the cathedral had the resources for such a musical extravaganza as you will hear tonight. 

But it turns out that the composer of the Mass, born Ignazio Gerusalemme in Lecce, Italy, was not tempted to Mexico City by a job at the cathedral, but was recruited by the Administrator of the Royal Hospital of Indigenous Citizens, one Josef Cárdenas. The hospital was funded by receipts from the Coliseo, the top theatre in town, and Cárdenas thought the box office could be boosted by having better music. Once working at the theatre Jerusalem was soon contacted to compose villancicos, songs with Spanish sacred texts, for the students of the cathedral’s college, and when the Cathedral Chapter decided to fire their music director, Jerusalem applied for the job. His up-to-date style, though, was a bit much for some of the cathedral authorities and between that and some political struggles about the hiring of musicians and rivals he took some time to drag the cathedral’s music into the nascent Classical period. 

Tonight’s Mass Ordinary (that is, the text heard at every Mass) setting was discovered in 1992 in the archives of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Musicologist Craig Russell attributed the setting to Jerusalem from its similarity to works known to be by him and prepared the edition we are performing from this evening. The Proper of the Mass is the plainchant for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, celebrated September 29th.


Prof. Russell also suggests that when the organ part drops out, and the organ has many bars of rests and some whole movements with no music at all, that the chordal accompaniment be taken by the harp and guitar, the instruments which accompanied in the theatre. We can be sure that those cathedral authorities mentioned above that were worried about Jerusalem’s innovations would have been grumpy about the plucked string contingent coming over from the theatre. They might have not been pleased with the vernacular villancicos either, though their incorporation into the Latin Mass is well documented, especially at Christmas. Que le diremos is tame enough but the villancico El Dìa del Corpus you will hear this evening in fact takes as its jumping off point the rhythm and chords of the chacona. This guitar dance was described as ‘irredeemably infectious lasciviousness’ by one disapproving church official in Spain. Indeed, Pedro Cerone, a 17th century music encyclopedist writes of the villancico –


There are some people so lacking in piety that they attend church but once a year, and miss all the Masses of Obligation, because they are too lazy to get up out of bed. But let it be known that there will be villancicos and there is no one more devout in the whole place, none more vigilant than these people, for there is no church, oratory, or shrine that they will not visit, nor do they mind getting up in the middle of the night in the freezing cold, just to hear them. 

Well, it might be hard to sleep through the trumpets and drums and spritely strings of the Mass as well. 

THE MUSICIANS IN ORDINARY ORCHESTRA
First Violin
Christopher Verrette
Michelle Odorico
Elizabeth Loewen

Second Violin
Patricia Ahern
Valerie Gordon
Rezan Onen Lapointe

Cello
Felix Deak
Laura Jones

Double Bass
Calum McLeod

Bassoon
Neil Chen

Continuo 
Borys Medicky - Organ
Julia Seager Scott - Harp
John Edwards - Guitar

Trumpet
Norm Engel
Paul Sanvidotti


Tympani and Percussion
Richard Moore

Soloists 
Julia Morson - Soprano
Rebecca Claborn - Mezzo Soprano 
Rob Kinar - Tenor 

Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices have been described as “winning performers of winning music.” A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. 

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest, as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire, and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle, and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and recently collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream.

St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum is an auditioned ensemble drawn from students, staff, alumni/ae, faculty, and friends of USMC, and members of St. Basil’s parish choir. We sing three concerts per year, at Michaelmas, during Advent, and Lent. Michael O’Connor is the founding Director of St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum. He teaches in the college programs at St. Michael’s and also directs the St. Mike’s Singing Club. His academic scholarship and practical music-making overlap in the theory and practice of liturgical music.

Concert photos by Sheila Eaton, USMC

Friday, May 12, 2017

Short documentary on the Anne Boleyn Songbook project.

Closet drama style read through and sing song of Comus by Milton, featuring top academics, indolent musicians and one actor on Mar. 29, 2017. Click on the donate now link to help us bring it to the stage next year.

Dramatis Personae

Stephen Orgel - Comus
Liz Pentland - The Attendant Spirit
Ruby Joy - The Lady
Heather Campbell - Elder Brother
Eleanor Verrette - Younger Brother
Deanne Williams - Sabrina

All songs sung by Hallie Fishel with John Edwards playing lute and theorbo.




Tuesday, March 14, 2017

The University of St. Michael’s College
in the University of Toronto presents

Star of the Sea
A concert of music for Advent

Friday, December 9, 2016 - 7:30 p.m.
St. Basil’s Church

HOPE
Rorate Caeli (Advent Prose) Anonymous plainchant
         Irene Gaspar, Annemarie Sherlock, cantors
St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum
Worldes Blis Goderic of Finchale (c. 1070–1170)
         Pneuma Ensemble
My Soul Doth Long William Leighton (c.1560–c. 1617)
         Hallie Fishel, soprano
         Musicians in Ordinary String Band
Ríu, Ríu, Chíu attrib. Mateo Flecha the Elder (+1553)
Jane Ubertino, Emily Sherlock, Robert Allair, soloists

GREETING
Gabriel From Heaven Came Anonymous, England (13th century)
In Nomine a 4 Orlando Gibbons (1583–1625)
Ego Flos Campi Clemens Non Papa (c.1510–1555/6)
Hanacpachap Cussicuinin Anonymous, Peru (1631)
Tricia Postle, Hallie Fishel, soloists

EXPECTATION
Tu Nimirum   Thomas Tallis (c.1505–1585)
Fantasia a 4 William Byrd (c.1540–1623)
Quant Voi La Flor Novele Anonymous, France (13th century)
Magnificat a 4 (SV 282) Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
Tricia Postle, cantor
Hallie Fishel, soprano
Christina Labriola, alto

TRANSLATIONS
Rorate Caeli (Advent Prose)
Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.

Be not angry, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever: Behold the city of the holy one is become a wilderness: Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation: the house of your holiness and of your glory, where our fathers praised you.

We have sinned, and have become unclean, and we all fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away: you have hidden your face from us, and have crushed us in the hand of our iniquities.

See, O Lord, the affliction of your people, and send the one who is to be sent: the Lamb, the ruler of the earth, from the rock of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Zion: that he himself will take away the yoke of our captivity.

Be consoled, be consoled, O my people: for your salvation shall not delay: why are you consumed with grief, why is your pain renewed? I will save you; fear not, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your redeemer.
From Isaiah 45

Worldes Blis 
Worldly bliss lasts not a moment;
it wanes and goes away anon.
The longer that I know it,
the less I find value thereon;
for all it is mingled with care,
with sorrows and with evil fare,
and at the last poor and bare
it leaves us, when it begins to be gone.
All the bliss that is here and there
encompasses at end weeps and moans.
No good will be there unrequited,
nor any evil will be unrepaid;
when you lie, mortal, under the mould
you shall have as you have wrought.
Bethink you well therefore, I urge,
and cleanse yourself of your misdeed,
that he may help you at your need,
he that so dearly has bought us, and to heaven’s bliss lead that ever lasts and fails not.
Goderic of Finchale

My Soul Doth Long 
My soule doth long and shall depend,
for ever on God ever living:
God shall begin and make an end,
that hath giv’n all, yet ever giving,

I sigh and groane for to appeare,
before his gratious mercy seate:
As thirst’th, the heart for water cleare
so long I for thy mercy great.

I am quite tyred with my groanes,
I faint under mine heavy loade:
Of miseries breaking all my bones,
laid on me justly by my God.

O God the rocke of my whole strength
Lord of mercy behould mine anguish
O graunt me helpe and ease at length,
I faint, I fall, I sigh, I languish.
William Leighton

Ríu, Ríu, Chíu 
With a cry of “Ríu, ríu, chíu,” the kingfisher, God, kept the wolf from our Lamb.

The rabid wolf wanted to bite her, but Almighty God knew how to defend her.
He decided to make her impervious to sin, even original sin this Virgin did not have.

This one who is born is the great king, , the patriarch Christ dressed in human flesh. He has redeemed us by making himself small; although he is infinite he made himself finite.

Many prophecies told of his coming,
And now in our days have we seen them fulfilled. God became man, on earth we behold him, and see man in heaven because he so willed.

I saw thousands of angels singing, flying, making heavenly music, proclaiming to the shepherds: Glory in the heavens, and peace on earth for Jesus is born.

He comes to give life to those who were dead, and to repair the fall of all. This Child is the light of the day, he is the Lamb of whom St. John the Baptist spoke.

Mark well the truth of what you have heard, that God could not make her more a mother: he that is her father is today born of her, he of whom she is the child is called her son.

Gabriel From Heaven Came 
Translation from Latin:
When the angel came secretly
To the Virgin in her room,
The maiden had dread
Gently, he said: “Hail!
Hail, Queen of virgins!
The Lord of heaven and earth,
You shall conceive and bear untouched
Salvation for mankind.
You have become the gate of heaven,
A remedy for sins.”

Translation from Middle English:
Gabriel, from heaven’s king
Sent to the maid sweet,
Brought her blissful tidings,
And fair he did her greet:
“Hail be thou, full of grace aright,
For God’s Son, this heaven’s light,
For man’s love will man become
and take flesh of thee, maiden bright,
Mankind free for to make
From sin and devil’s might.”

Ego Flos Campi
I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons.
   I sat down under his shadow, whom I desired: and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention toward me was love.
   Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples; for I am faint with love.
   A garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.  
Song of Songs 2:1–5; 4:15

Hanacpachap Cussicuinin 
Heaven’s joy!
A thousand times shall we praise you.
O tree bearing thrice-blessed fruit,
O hope of humankind, helper of the weak, hear our prayer!

Attend to our pleas, O column of ivory, Mother of God! Beautiful iris, yellow and white, receive this song we offer you;
come to our assistance, show us the fruit of your womb!

Tu Nimirum
By the purity and integrity of your mind undefiled you have certainly surpassed by far all other maidens, as many as have existed since the very beginning of the world, or ever shall exist until the world’s end.
From the antiphon Salve intemerata virgo

Quant Voi La Flor Novele
When I see the new flowers
Blooming in the field,
Then I sing a new song
Of the virgin maid,
Who with the milk of her breast
Nursed the King,
Who from her worthy, beautiful flesh
Came to save us.

Maiden worthy and pure
In whom all goodness is purified,
Who cures us from sin.
Take care of me;
Through your dear son assure me,
By your promise,
That in heaven with certain joy
I will be rewarded.

Holy lady Mary,
Full of grace,
Be ready to aid us,
Do not forget us;
That in this mortal life
We merit reward,
That in your company
We will be able to arrive.

Flower of mercy,
Accord me to your son;
Tune the string so well
That it can never discord.
The devil can’t apply himself
To untuning me,
So that I cannot by agreement
Be returned to concord.

Mary, sweet mother,
You were never bitter;
Daughter and mother of a King,
You bore your Father.
I pray you, most gentle Mother,
Full of pity,
That God who is our Father
Cast us far from sin.

Magnificat 
1. My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
2. And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
3. For he has looked with favour on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed.
4. The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.
5. And his mercy is on those who fear him, in every generation.
6.    He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
7. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.
8. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
9. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy.
10. As he spoke to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children for ever.
11. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.
12. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Luke 1:46–55

THE SEASON OF ADVENT is bifocal: it looks forward to the end of time and the Second Coming (or advent) of Christ while also looking back at his first coming—as a baby in Bethlehem. It is a season of hope and expectation, sometimes very conscious of the need for consolation and redemption, sometimes just fixed on the grace and mercy of God. The music in tonight’s program covers all these emotions. The first group of pieces dwells on themes of hope and preparation—beginning with the ancient Advent prose, “Rorate caeli,” which sets a cluster of texts from the prophet Isaiah calling on the merciful one to answer in time of helpless need.
The hymns of Goderic of Finchale (c. 1070–1170) are the earliest English songs with extant melodies. Goderic was a successful and well-travelled merchant before becoming a hermit; his life and songs were chronicled by Reginald of Durham. His songs consist of a prayer to Mary, a prayer to St. Nicholas, a song on the death of his sister Burhcwen (who was also a hermit) and “Worldes Blis,” a meditation on the transience and frustration of earthly life.
William Leighton seems to have commissioned several composers to set his poems to music, publishing the results in Tears and Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soul (1641)—including Byrd, Bull, Dowland, Gibbons, and John Milton the Elder. He also included eight of his own settings, one of which is included in tonight’s program: “My Soul Doth Long,” a poignant expression of spiritual thirst for liberation and forgiveness.
The first group ends with a Spanish villancico celebrating God’s preparation of Mary by preserving her from original sin. The anonymous text imagines God as the kingfisher on the river bank, calling out (“ríu! ríu! chíu!”) to protect the lamb (Mary) from a wolf (the devil).
       The second group of pieces places Mary at the centre. The anonymous thirteenth-century song, “Gabriel from heaven came,” tells the story of Mary’s angelic visitor in both Latin and English versions in the same thirteenth-century manuscript (BL Arundel 248). Which was the original, and which was the translation? We don’t know, but it’s the Latin version that is sung by Chaucer’s clerk Nicholas when he plays psaltery and sings in his chamber.
In his Mass, Gloria Tibi Trinitas (1530), John Taverner used an antiphon for the feast of the Trinity as the subject, or cantus firmus, for the entire Mass, weaving the polyphonic choral voices around snippets of the chant as a structural device. The first time Taverner lets you hear the chant sung in its entirety is at the words “in nomine Domine” (“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”). Following his example, many English composers took the plainchant and used it over and over as a cantus firmus for chamber music—paying homage to Taverner by calling their consorts In Nomines after the passage in his Mass rather than the original plainchant. Gibbons’s “In Nomine” for four-part strings shows that the genre was still flourishing almost a century after Taverner’s Mass.
It is not clear why Clemens Non Papa was called Clement “not the pope”: he lived for most of his life in Flanders, never travelled to Italy, and pope Clement VII died before any of the composer’s music was published. In 1550 Clemens was employed for a few months by a Marian confraternity in ’s-Hertogenbosch whose members revered Mary “sicut lilium inter spinas” (“as a lily among thorns”). In “Ego Flos Campi,” Clemens sets this phrase prominently in direct homophonic blocks contrasting with polyphonic entanglements all around, before moving on to highly fluid music for the water gardens and the flowing rivers of Lebanon. In its liturgical context, the text’s language of desire and intimacy is applied to the love between God and the Virgin Mary.
“Hanacpachap Cussicuinin” appeared for the first time in the  Ritual Formulario e Institución de Curas (Lima, Peru, 1631) and is the earliest known work of Peruvian polyphony. The text, in Quechua (the language of the Incas), joyfully celebrates Mary and her wondrous child. In tonight’s performance, the separate ensembles come together to bring this vibrant music to life.
         William Byrd had the top church music job at Queen Elizabeth’s court even though he was a “staunch papist,” and patronized by the recusant Petre and Paston families. These families were avid collectors of scores. The parts and a lute intabulation of Tallis’s “Tu Nimirum” are in the Paston manuscripts which include Latin motets apparently performed with viols or violins, as we do tonight. In this way, large choral pieces could be repurposed as sets of smaller pieces for domestic devotions.
Immediately following, we will hear a “Fantasia” by Byrd for the string band. In a method book, Thomas Morley describes the fantasia as the most important instrumental form: “The most principal and chiefest kind of music which is made without a ditty is the fantasy, that is, when a musician taketh a point at his pleasure, and wresteth and turneth it as he list.”
“Quant Voi La Flor Novele” is a Marian trouvère song, adapted from an anonymous pastoral (also in Old French), about a knight and a shepherdess, which may well have been a dance tune. Mary is often linked with the number five, including her symbol the five-petaled rose; it seems likely that the number of verses here reflects this. Verse four is particularly resonant for musicians.
The concert closes with a sumptuous setting by Monteverdi of the pregnant Mary’s song of praise (“Magnificat”). The even-numbered verses are set to a standard plainchant melody. In the odd-numbered verses, the composer conjures endless variations and combinations of the chant melody in two, three, and four parts, performed tonight with a combination of voices and strings.

The Musicians In Ordinary 
Soprano - Hallie Fishel
Violin - Chris Verrette
Viola - Matt Antal, Eleanor Verrette
Bass Violin - Amanda Keesmaat
Lutes and Theorbo-John Edwards

Pneuma Ensemble
Vielle - Eleanor Verrette
Gittern, Cittern - Gaven Dianda
Voice, Percussion, Psaltery - Tricia Postle

St. Michael's Schola Cantorum
Soprano
Madeline Dawson, Hallie Fishel*, Mekhriban Mamedova, Sheila Mulrooney, Barbara North, Emily Sherlock*, Jane Ubertino*

Alto
Irene Chan, Cindy Dymond, Irene Gaspar*, Ana Iorgulescu, Christina Labriola*, Annemarie Sherlock*, Kathryn Zaleski-Cox

Tenor
Jeremy Hernandez-Lum Tong, Ben Kim, Edmund Lo, Reid Locklin, Antonio Manco

Bass
Robert Allair*, Eric Charron, Paul McGrath, Adrian Ross
* = soloists

The Musicians In Ordinary 
Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as “winning performers of winning music.” A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream. Chris was the sound of Mark Smeaton’s violin on the TV series The Tudors.

Matt Antal was born and raised in Toronto. He attended Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts where he began playing viola at age 13 under the tutelage of Jolanta Hickey and Angela Rudden. An all-round lover of music, he has played in numerous ensembles in genres ranging from jazz to hardcore metal. He holds both a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied under Katharine Rapoport, and a master’s degree from the University of Victoria, where he was a student of Joanna Hood, both in viola performance. He is currently pursuing an advanced certificate in Baroque viola with Tafelmusik.

Eleanor Verrette studied violin with Gretchen Paxson and Aisslinn Nosky, modern viola with Anna-Belle Marcotte at McGill University, where she graduated with a BMus in 2012, and Baroque viola with Pemi Paull. She now performs regularly on Renaissance and Baroque viola with The Musicians In Ordinary, on vielle and rebec with Toronto-based medieval group Pneuma Ensemble, and on plugged-in viola with Boston-area band Hadley and the Jackal. She is featured on recent album releases by acclaimed folk-rock artists Lakes of Canada and Corinna Rose and has also performed with Aradia Ensemble and Montréal singer-songwriter Ari Swan.

Originally from Hamilton, Amanda Keesmaat, bass violin, obtained her Bachelor of Music from the University of Western Ontario and her Artist Diploma from McGill University. A vibrant presence in the Montreal early music community for more than 15 years, she has recorded and performed with prominent singers such as Matthew White, Daniel Taylor, Shannon Mercer, Donna Brown, Natalie Paulin, Susie Le Blanc and Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and renowned ensembles such as Arion Baroque Orchestra, La Nef, Les Idées Heureuses and Les Boréades.  She appears regularly on concert series with Arion Baroque Orchestra, Clavecin en Concert, Studio Musique Ancienne de Montréal, La Nef and at festivals such as Montreal Baroque, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Lameque Baroque Festival, and Vancouver Early Music Festival and Music and Beyond.  As a founding member of Ensemble Les Voix Baroques and Skye Consort, she has performed across Canada. Amanda has recorded for ATMA discs, Early-Music.com, Fidelio, XXI, Analekta, ombú, CBC Radio and CBC Television, BRAVO, the NFB and Radio-Canada.

Pneuma Ensemble (from the Greek πνεῦμα, “breath,” “spirit,” or “soul”) formed when three Toronto musicians (Tricia Postle, Eleanor Verrette, Gaven Dianda) decided to explore their shared interest in medieval monophony, such as troubadour song and minnesang. Since their first concert in the spring of 2014, they have toured in Spain and the UK,  and had residencies at the Banff Centre and at the Fairview Library in North York. For more about Pneuma Ensemble, visit pneumaensemble.com, or find us on Facebook.

St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum is an auditioned ensemble drawn from students, staff, alumni/ae, faculty, and friends of USMC, and members of St. Basil’s parish choir. We sing three concerts per year, at Michaelmas, during Advent, and Lent. Michael O’Connor is the founding Director of St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum. He teaches in the college programs at St. Michael’s and also directs the St. Mike’s Singing Club. His academic scholarship and practical music-making overlap in the theory and practice of liturgical music.

We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the following:
Mike Schreiner for lute construction and maintenance
Alexandra Guerson for the MIO website design
Fr. John Reddy CSB for use of the chapel at the Flahiff Centre for rehearsal
Fr. Chris Valka CSB for the use of St. Basil’s Church this evening



Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The University of St. Michael’s College
in the University of Toronto presents

Vivaldi, Gloria and other music 
for the feast of St. Michael
Wednesday, September 28, 2016 - 7:30 p.m.
St. Basil’s Church 

Concerto Grosso in A, Op. 6, no. 11 George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
1. Andante larghetto e staccato
2. Allegro  
3. Largo e staccato
4. Andante
5. Allegro

O Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem John Blow (1649–1708) - Hallie Fishel, soprano
Kyrie Eleison Anonymous plainchant (11th century) - Joel Allison, cantor

Gloria in D, RV 589 Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)
1. Gloria in excelsis Deo
2. Et in terra pax 
3. Laudamus te - Hallie Fishel and Laurel-Ann Finn, sopranos 
4. Gratias agimus tibi
5. Propter magnam gloriam 
6. Domine Deus - Hallie Fishel, soprano 
7. Domine, Fili unigenite
8. Domine Deus, Agnus Dei - Annemarie Sherlock, alto
9. Qui tollis peccata mundi
10. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris - Christina Labriola, alto
11. Quoniam tu solus sanctus 
12. Cum Sancto Spiritu 

NOTES
“The best music-making in Venice is to be found in the orphanages for girls, consisting entirely of orphans, of illegitimate children, or of children from families unable to pay for their education. The state educates them at their expense and has some of them trained to be good musicians. It is therefore no wonder that they sing like angels, and play violin, flute, oboe, organ, cello, and bassoon, not even stopping at the largest instruments. Some forty girls perform at each concert. I assure you there is no more delightful sight than a pretty young nun wearing a white robe and a bouquet of pomegranate flowers in her hair, leading an orchestra with incomparable grace and the proper feeling.”

This description of the music at the Conservatorio dell’Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi was Maestro di Concerti, is by Charles de Brosses, Count of Tournay. The concerts given by the young women of the Pietà were a major attraction on the Venice stop of the Grand Tour taken by European gentlemen of the eighteenth century.

Given the present popularity of the Gloria in D major, it is hard to imagine that Vivaldi’s church music was completely forgotten until well into the twentieth century. His sacred music, existing in manuscripts scattered throughout Europe, was largely composed and performed as part of his duties at the Pietà and this Gloria is no exception. De Brosses goes on to say that the Pietà’s string section was better than that of the Paris Opéra, so Vivaldi must have been a great teacher as well as violinist and composer.

John Blow was 11 years old at the Restoration of the English crown in 1660. The Chapel Royal choir had been disbanded when the Puritans took power (though Cromwell pinched the chapel organ and there is a record of him enjoying two boys singing Latin motets at his home in Hampton Court) so there were so few trained boy sopranos that they were forced to use “men’s feigned voices” (falsetto singers) as trebles. This stop gap was soon remedied as boys like Blow and Pelham Humphrey were educated in the French style which the restored king had grown accustomed to in his exile at the French court. Blow’s anthem is unusual in having a single soprano soloist; most such anthems use alternating sections of bass, tenor, and alto (in fact, high tenor, not “feigned voices”), soloists, with full choir. Perhaps the soldier St. Michael, whose feast we celebrate, will not mind us praying for peace tonight and hoping to dispense with his services.

When the young Handel was sent to Rome to absorb the Italian style he composed a French style overture, with the type of rhythms that stud Blow’s anthem, to be performed by an orchestra led by Arcangelo Corelli (the composer who perfected the Concerto Grosso form). After a disastrous read through, Corelli is supposed to have said “But, my dear Saxon, this is in the French style, which I do not understand.” Handel’s Concerti Grossi retain the Italianate alternation between a little concertino group and the big ripieno group; at the same time, he trusted the English subscribers to his London print of Concerti Grossi (1739) to be able to cope with French style overtures, or at least not to be as chauvinistic as Corelli was in pretending not to understand them.

First Violin
Christopher Verrette, Michelle Odorico, Elizabeth Loewen

Second Violin
Patricia Ahern, Valerie Gordon, Rezan Onen Lapointe

Viola
Matt Antal, Eleanor Verrette

Cello
Laura Jones, Felix Deak

Double Bass
Calum McLeod

Continuo 
Philip Fournier, John Edwards

Oboe
Gillian Howard

Trumpet
Andras Molnar

Soprano
Madeline Dawson, Laurel-Ann Finn, Hallie Fishel, Anna Lubinsky, Sheila Mulrooney, Barbara North, Emily Sherlock, Jane Ubertino

Alto
Irene Chan, Cindy Dymond, Irene Gaspar, Ana Iorgulescu, Christina Labriola, Mekhriban Mamedova, Paula Owalabi, Annemarie Sherlock, Julia Warnes, Kathryn Zaleski-Cox
 
Tenor
Jeremy Hernandez-Lum Tong, Rob Kinar, Edmund Lo, Reid Locklin, Antonio Manco

Bass
Joel Allison, Eric Charron, Paul McGrath

Rehearsal Pianist
Mekhriban Mamedova


Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as “winning performers of winning music.” A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. 

Tenor Robert Kinar studied in Montreal and at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he completed a Master’s degree in Performance Practice. Since locating to Toronto, Robert has appeared with various groups in the region including the Guelph Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Masque Theatre, Tallis Choir, and the Elora Festival Singers. He recently sang the role of Evangelist for the Grand River Chorus’s performance of Bach’s St. John Passion, and the lead role for the premiere of Andrew Ager’s new opera Führerbunker. Robert has also enjoyed solo performances with Video Games Live and the Final Fantasy Distant Worlds tour. In his spare time he maintains a small vocal studio, works in the TV and Film industry, and is brushing up on his keyboard/continuo playing.

Canadian bass-baritone Joel Allison hails from the Ottawa valley and obtained his BMus in vocal performance from the University of Ottawa. He has relocated to Toronto to pursue a Diploma in Opera Performance from the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Daniel Taylor. Upcoming performances with the Opera Studio at the University of Toronto include Mr. Gobineau in The Medium by Gian Carlo Menotti, and John Shears in Paul Bunyan by Benjamin Britten. Recent engagements include the role of Adam in Haydn’s Creation with the Peterborough Singers; premiering a new song cycle by Andrew Ager at the University of Ottawa; the title role in Telemann’s Don Quixote with the Seventeen Voyces; the role of Aeneas in the University of Ottawa’s production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas; the bass soloist in Mozart’s Requiem for the Strings of St. John’s; and appearances as soloist with the Talisker Players for the past two seasons. Joel is an alumnus of the Ontario Youth Choir and the Tafelmusik Summer Baroque Institute. 

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest, as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire, and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle, and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and recently collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream.

St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum is an auditioned ensemble drawn from students, staff, alumni/ae, faculty, and friends of USMC, and members of St. Basil’s parish choir. We sing three concerts per year, at Michaelmas, during Advent, and Lent. Michael O’Connor is the founding Director of St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum. He teaches in the college programs at St. Michael’s and also directs the St. Mike’s Singing Club. His academic scholarship and practical music-making overlap in the theory and practice of liturgical music.



Friday, April 22, 2016

SWEET SWAN OF AVON
To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Sorrows

8PM, Apr. 23, 2016 
Heliconian Hall,
35 Hazelton Ave. (near Bay Subway), Toronto
Single tickets at the door $30/$20 students & seniors

Prelude       Anon.
Robert, Earl of Essex is thought to be the sitter in a picture by Hilliard known as ‘A Melancholy Youth’. We can be sure he was in a dump by the time his ill-conceived rebellion had failed spectacularly and he was sitting in the Tower awaiting his execution. It is in this situation he wrote the words set here by Dowland, invoking his muse at the beginning of a long poem. On the eve of his rebellion, Essex’s supporters paid to have Richard II performed at the Globe, so it seems appropriate to have Gaunt’s meditation on death before Essex’s lyric. Dowland’s book of music for five-part strings and lute called Lachrimae or Seaven Teares begins with ‘seven passionate pavans’ each starting with his ‘tear’ motif of four notes. Antique is a reworking of the song version you will hear later, itself a reworking of a lute solo.
Gaunt from Richard II I:3
From silent night         John Dowland (1563-1626)
Lachrimae Antique          Dowland

The mad Ophelia’s speech as she hands out allusive flowers to the pitiful onlookers needs little introduction. We present Morley’s canzonette on the death of a young lady. The next pavan is titled ‘New Old Tears’.
Ophelia from Hamlet IV:5
O, griefe, even on the bud   Thomas Morley (1558-1602)
Lachrimae Antique Novae   Dowland

Hamlet’s admonishment of his mother when she suggests he end his mourning for his father needs little setup either. We comment musically with Dowland’s almost expressionistic song of melancholy and desperation and some ‘groaning tears’.
Hamlet from Hamlet I:2
In darknesse let me dwell    Dowland
Lachrimae Gementes        Dowland

We present speech where Ferdinand, who thinks he has lost his father in a shipwreck, hears Ariel sing Full fathom five set for the play by Robert Johnson. The text of Come yee heavy states, also thought to be a playsong, has so many images in common with Full fathom five that the latter would seem to have been influenced by the text Dowland sets. This pavan, marked out as ‘sad tears’, quotes the phrase which sets the words ‘tears a delightful thing’ in Dowland’s own song I saw my lady weep which you may have heard in our Lives of Girls and Women concert.
Ferdinand from The Tempest I:2
Come yee heavy states of night   Dowland
Lachrimae Tristes             Dowland

John Danyel, brother of the poet Samuel, titles this cycle of three songs Mrs. M.E. Her Funeral Teares. We surround the meditation on the meaning of tears and sighs with similar thoughts from plays, and finish the half with ‘forced tears’.
Duke from Measure for Measure III:1                 
Greefe keep within    John Danyel (1564-c.1626)
Richard from Henry VI Pt. III II:1
Drop not myne eyes             Danyel
The Queen from Henry VI Pt. II III:2
Have all our passions      Danyel
Lachrimae Coactae        Dowland

Intermission

Preludium      Dowland
The only Lachrimae pavan with a possessive in the title is ‘Lover’s tears’, heard in this set, which allows us to present the thoughts of melancholy lovers who have lost control of their thoughts and their tongues in Shakespeare’s sonnet and the poem set by Dowland.
Sonnet 85
Unquiet thoughts         Dowland
Lachrimae Amantis     Dowland

When we met Pericles, Prince of Tyre in the last program he was thanking the gods for his and his daughter’s delivery from the sea. Here the narrator Gower places him earlier in the ordeal which will lead him to a catatonic state of melancholy. Dowland’s famous Sorrow stay is arranged as a consort song, and we finish Dowland’s cycle of Lachrimae pavans with ‘true tears’.
Gower from Pericles IV:3
Sorrow come    Dowland, arr. William Wigthorpe
Lachrimae Verae      Dowland

So we end our contemplations on the death of our friend Shakespeare with a sonnet, and the song that launched Dowland’s seven passionate pavans, and, as you will hear in the first notes of Holborne’s pavan, many more besides.
Sonnet 30
Lacrime – Flow my tears    Dowland
The Image of Melancholly     Antony Holborne (d. 1602)

But Shakespeare remains our contemporary. In the manuscript of Thomas More there are large passages thought to be by Shakespeare. During Henry VIII’s reign apprentice boys gathered and started beating up and burning the houses of foreigners and refugees in London. Thomas More was sent with a troop to calm things down. Shakespeare puts these words into his mouth. Timor et Tremor is in a set of manuscripts with untexted lower parts (so played not sung) and a lute book owned by the Roman Catholic Paston family.
Thomas More in Thomas More
Timor et tremor                                     Orlando Lassus (1532-1594)
Fear and terror have settled upon me;
the shadows have invaded me.
Have mercy on me, Lord; have mercy.
Unto you I commend my spirit.

Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
for you are my refuge
and my succour, all-powerful Lord
and I invoke Thee: let me never be confounded.

The program was devised with the scholarship and expertise of Prof. Deanne Williams. 

The Musicians In Ordinary
Named after the singers and lutenists who performed in the most intimate quarters of the Stuart monarchs’ palace, The Musicians In Ordinary for the Lutes and Voices dedicate themselves to the performance of early solo song and vocal chamber music. Soprano Hallie Fishel and lutenist John Edwards have been described as ‘winning performers of winning music.’ A fixture on the Toronto early music scene for over 10 years, in 2012 MIO became Ensemble in Residence at St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. They have concertized across North America and lecture regularly at universities and museums. Institutions where MIO have performed range from the scholarly to those for a more general public and include the Shakespeare Society of America, the Renaissance Society of America, the Shakespeare Association of America, Grinnell College, the Universities of Alberta, Toronto and at California at San Diego, the Kingston Opera Guild, Syracuse, Trent and York Universities and the Bata Shoe Museum. They have been Ensemble in Residence at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Seth Lerer is Distinguished Professor of Literature at the University of California at San Diego. Well known for his scholarship and public lectures in the history of the English Language, he has also published widely on medieval and Renaissance English Literature, poetry, and Children's Literature. His books have won such awards as the Harry Levin Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Truman Capote Prize in Criticism. His most recent book is Prospero's Son, a memoir published by the University of Chicago Press. His current work on a book on music, myth, and lyric poetry in Shakespeare's last plays helped inspire our Sweet Swan of Avon series.

Christopher Verrette has been a member of the violin section of Tafelmusik since 1993 and is a frequent soloist and leader with the orchestra. He holds a Bachelor of Music and a Performer’s Certificate from Indiana University. He contributed to the development of early music in the American Midwest as a founding member of the Chicago Baroque Ensemble and Ensemble Voltaire and as a guest director with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. He collaborates with many ensembles around North America, performing music from seven centuries on violin, viola, rebec, vielle and viola d’amore. He was concertmaster in a recording of rarely heard classical symphonies for an anthology by Indiana University Press and collaborated with Sylvia Tyson on the companion recording to her novel, Joyner’s Dream. Chris was the sound of Mark Smeaton’s violin on the TV series The Tudors.

Matt Antal was born and raised in Toronto. He attended Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts where he began playing viola at age 13 under the tutelage of Jolanta Hickey and Angela Rudden. An all-around lover of music, he has played in numerous ensembles in genres ranging from jazz to hardcore metal. He holds both a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto, where he studied under Katharine Rapoport, and a master’s degree from the University of Victoria, where he was a student of Joanna Hood, both in viola performance. He is currently pursuing an advanced certificate in Baroque viola with Tafelmusik.

Eleanor Verrette studied violin with Gretchen Paxson and Aisslinn Nosky, modern viola with Anna-Belle Marcotte at McGill University, where she graduated with a BMus. in 2012, and Baroque viola with Pemi Paull. She now performs regularly on Renaissance and Baroque viola with The Musicians In Ordinary, on vielle and rebec with Toronto-based medieval group Pneuma Ensemble, and on plugged-in viola with Boston-area band Hadley and the Jackal. She is featured on recent album releases by acclaimed folk-rock artists Lakes of Canada and Corinna Rose and has also performed with Aradia Ensemble and Montréal singer-songwriter Ari Swan.

Stephen Marvin is a writer, musician and craftsman living in Toronto. Since 1977 he has specialized in early music, performing with and leading many well known ensembles. He was principal violinist and violist with the Tafelmusik Orchestra and Chamber Players for 20 years, and now performs in about half of the season's programs. Stephen’s primary devotion to chamber music has inspired his participation in many ensembles, especially recitals and trio performances of late 18th century repertoire with fortepiano. Currently, he is the violist with the Lumiere Quartet. Stephen is represented on more than sixty CDs and other recordings, most notably with Sony. He also enjoys an international reputation as a bow-maker. For twenty-five years he has specialized in 17th and 18th century reproductions for early music specialists like himself, and has published articles and given lectures on the history and construction of old bows. He has recently begun making modern bows after examples by Tourte, Peccatte and others.

Originally from Hamilton, Amanda Keesmaat, bass violin, obtained her Bachelor of Music from the University of Western Ontario and her Artist Diploma from McGill University. A vibrant presence in the Montreal early music community for more than 15 years, she has recorded and performed with prominent singers such as Matthew White, Daniel Taylor, Shannon Mercer, Donna Brown, Natalie Paulin, Susie Le Blanc and Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and renowned ensembles such as Arion Baroque Orchestra, La Nef, Les Idées Heureuses and Les Boréades.  She appears regularly on concert series with Arion Baroque Orchestra, Clavecin en Concert, Studio Musique Ancienne de Montréal, La Nef and at festivals such as Montreal Baroque, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Lameque Baroque Festival, and Vancouver Early Music Festival and Music and Beyond.  As a founding member of Ensemble Les Voix Baroques and Skye Consort, she has performed across Canada. Amanda has recorded for ATMA discs, Early-Music.com, Fidelio, XXI, Analekta, ombú, CBC Radio and CBC Television, BRAVO, the NFB and Radio-Canada.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Here's the script from our Apr. 23rd 'Sweet Swan of Avon' season finale at Heliconian Hall. 

8PM. Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton Ave. near Bay Subway

Hallie Fishel sings, John Edwards plays lute, Christopher Verrette leads the string band and Seth Lerer reads. 

Single tickets at the door $30/$20 students & seniors



Shakespeare's Sorrows

Prelude – Anon.
Richard II I:3
Gaunt. Shorten my dayes thou canst with sudden sorow,
And plucke nights from me, but not lend a morrow:
Thou canst helpe time to furrow me with age,
But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage:
Thy word is currant with him, for my death,
But dead, thy kingdome cannot buy my breath.

Song by Dowland
From silent night, true register of moanes,
From saddest Soule consumde with deepest sinnes,
From hart quite rent with sighes, and heavie groanes,
My wayling Muse her wofull work begins.
And to the world brings tunes of sad despaire,
Sounding nought else but sorrow griefe and care.
Lachrimae Antique – John Dowland

The text of the previous song is by Robert, Earl of Essex
Hamlet IV:5
Ophe. There's Fennell for you, and Columbines: ther's
Rew for you, and heere's some for me. Wee may call it
Herbe-Grace a Sundaies: Oh you must weare your Rew
with a difference. There's a Daysie, I would give you
some Violets, but they wither'd all when my Father dy-
ed: They say, he made a good end;

Song by Thomas Morley
O, griefe, even on the bud that fairely flouered,
The sun hath lowered,
And ah that brest which Love durst never venture,
Bold death did enter.
Pitie O heavens that have my love in keeping,
My cries and weeping.
Lachrimae Antique Novae – Dowland



Hamlet I:2
Ham. Seemes Madam? Nay, it is: I know not Seemes:
'Tis not alone my Inky Cloake (good Mother)
Nor Customary suites of solemne Blacke,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitfull River in the Eye,
Nor the dejected haviour of the Visage,
Together with all Formes, Moods, shewes of Griefe,
That can denote me truly. These indeed Seeme,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that Within, which passeth show;
These, but the Trappings, and the Suites of woe.

Song by Dowland
In darknesse let me dwell the ground shall sorrow be,
The roofe Dispaire to barre all cheerfull light from mee,
The wals of marble blacke that moistened still shall weepe,
My musicke hellish jarring sounds to banish friendly sleepe.
Thus wedded to my woes and bedded to my Tombe,
O let me living die, till death, till death doe come
   In darknesse let me dwell.
Lachrimae Gementes – Dowland


The Tempest I:2
Fer. Where shold this Musick be? I'th aire, or th'earth?
It sounds no more: and sure it waytes upon
Some God 'oth' Iland, sitting on a banke,
Weeping againe the King my Fathers wracke.
This Musicke crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury, and my passion
With it's sweet ayre: thence I have follow'd it
(Or it hath drawne me rather) but 'tis gone.
No, it begins againe.

Song by Dowland
Come yee heavy states of night,
Doe my fathers spirit right,
Soundings balefull let mee borrow,
Burthening my song with sorrow,
Come sorrow come hir eies that sings,
By thee are turned into springs.

Come you Virgins of the night,
That in Dirges sad delight,
Quier my Anthems, I doe borrow
Gold nor pearle, but sounds of sorrow:
Come sorrow come hir eies that sings,
By thee are tourned into springs.
Lachrimae Tristes – Dowland


Measure for Measure III:1
Duke. Be absolute for death: either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do loose thee, I do loose a thing
That none but fooles would keepe: a breath thou art,
Servile to all the skyie-influences
That dost this habitation where thou keepst
Hourely afflict: Meerely, thou art deaths foole,
For him thou labourst by thy flight to shun,
And yet runst toward him still.

Song by John Danyel
The first part.
Greefe keep within and scorne to shew but teares,
Since Joy can weepe as well as thou :
Disdaine to sigh for so can slender cares,
Which but from Idle causes grow.
Doe not looke forth unlesse thou didst know how
To looke with thine owne face, and as thou art,
And onely let my hart,
That knowes more reason why,
Pyne, fret, consume, swell, burst and dye.

Henry VI Pt. III II:1
Rich. I cannot weepe: for all my bodies moysture
Scarse serves to quench my Furnace-burning hart:
Nor can my tongue unloade my hearts great burthen,
For selfe-same winde that I should speake withall,
Is kindling coales that fires all my brest,
And burnes me up with flames, that tears would quench.
To weepe, is to make lesse the depth of greefe:

The second part
Drop not myne eyes nor Trickle downe so fast,
For so you could doe oft before,
In our sad farewells and sweet meetings past,
And shall his death now have no more ?
Can niggard sorrow yeld no other store :
To shew the plentie of afflictions smart,
Then onely thou poore hart,
That knowst more reason why,
Pyne, Fret, Consume, Swell, Burst and Dye.

Henry VI Pt. II III:2
Qu. Might liquid teares, or heart-offending groanes,
Or blood-consuming sighes recall his Life;
I would be blinde with weeping,

The third part
Have all our passions certaine proper vents, 
And sorrow none that is her owne ?
But she must borow others complements,
To make her inward feelings knowne ?
Are Joyes delights and deathes compassion showne,
With one lyke face and one lamenting part ?
Then onely thou poore hart
That know'st more reason why,
Pyne, Fret, Consume, Swell, Burst and Dye.
Lachrimae Coactae – Dowland



Intermission

Sonnet 85
My toung-tide Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise richly compil'd,
Reserve their Character with goulden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses fil'd.
I thinke good thoughts, whilst other write good wordes,
And like unlettered clarke still crie Amen,
To every Himne that able spirit affords,
In polisht forme of well refined pen.
Hearing you praisd, I say 'tis so, 'tis true,
And to the most of praise adde some-thing more,
But that is in my thought, whose love to you
(Though words come hind-most) holds his ranke before,
   Then others, for the breath of words respect,
   Me for my dombe thoughts, speaking in effect.

Song by Dowland
Unquiet thoughts your civill slaughter stint,
And wrap your wrongs within a pensive heart:
And you my tongue that makes my mouth a mint,
And stamps my thoughts to coine them words by art,
Be still: for if you ever do the like,
Ile cut the string that makes the hammer strike.

But what can stay my thoughts they may not start,
Or put my tongue in durance for to die?
When as these eyes, the keyes of mouth and hart,
Open the locke where all my love doth lie;
Ile seale them up within their lids for ever:
So thoughts, and words, and looks shall die together.

How shall I then gaze on my mistresse eyes?
My thoghts must have som vent: else hart wil break.
My tongue would rust as in my mouth it lies,
If eyes and thoughts were free, and that not speake.
Speake then, and tell the passions of desire;
Which turns mine eies to floods, my thoghts to fire.
Lachrimae Amantis – Dowland


Pericles IV:3
Gow.  And Pericles in sorrowe all devour'd,
With sighes shot through, and biggest teares ore-showr'd.
Leaves Tharsus, and againe imbarques, hee sweares
Never to wash his face, nor cut his hayres:
Hee put on sack-cloth, and to Sea he beares,
A Tempest which his mortall vessell teares.
And yet hee rydes it out,

Song by Dowland
Sorrow come, lend true repentant teares,
To a woefull wretched wight,
Hence dispair with thy tormenting feares:
O doe not my poor heart affright,
Pitty, help now or never,
Mark me not to endlesse paine,
Alack I am condempned ever,
No hope, nor help there doth remain,
But down, down, down, down I fall,
Down and arise I never shall.
Lachrimae Verae – Dowland


Sonnet 30
When to the Sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lacke of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new waile my deare times waste:
Then can I drowne an eye (un-us'd to flow)
For precious friends hid in deaths dateles night,
And weepe a fresh loves long since canceld woe,
And mone th'expence of many a vannisht sight.
Then can I greeve at greevances fore-gon,
And heavily from woe to woe tell ore
The sad account of fore-bemoned mone,
Which I new pay as if not payd before.
   But if the while I thinke on thee (deare friend)
   All losses are restord, and sorrowes end.

Song by Dowland
Lacrime
Flow my tears fall from your springs,
Exilded for ever: let mee mourne,
Where nightes black bird hir sad infamy sings,
There let mee live forlorne.

Downe vaine lightes shine you no more,
No nightes are dark enough for those
That in dispaire their lost fortuns deplore,
Light doth but shame disclose.

Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pittie is fled,
And teares and sighes and grones my wearie dayes
Of all joyes have deprived.

From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is throwne,
And feare and griefe and paine for my deserts
Are my hopes since hope is gone.

Harke you shadowes that in darkness dwell,
Learne to contemne light
Happie they that in hell
Feele not the worlds despite.
The Image of Melancholly – Antony Holborne



Thomas More 
Moo…. youle put downe straingers
kill them cutt their throts possesse their howses
and leade the majestie of lawe in liom
to slipp him lyke a hound; say nowe the king
as he is clement, yf thoffendor moorne
shoold so much com to short of your great trespas
as but to banysh you, whether woold you go.
what Country by the nature of your error
shoold gyve you harber go you to ffraunc or flanders
to any Jarman province, spane or portigall
nay any where that not adheres to Ingland
why you must needs be straingers. woold you be pleasd
to find a nation of such barbarous temper
that breaking out in hiddious violence
woold not afoord you, an abode on earth
whett their detested knyves against your throtes
spurne you lyke doggs, and lyke as yf that god
owed not nor made not you, nor that the elaments
wer not all appropriat to your Comforts.
but Charterd unto them, what woold you thinck
to be thus usd, this is the straingers case
all and this your montanish inhumanyty

Motet by Orlando Lassus
Timor et tremor venerunt super me,
et caligo cecidit super me:
miserere mei Domine,
quoniam in te confidit anima mea.

Exaudi Deus deprecationem meam
quia refugium meum es
tu adjutor fortis.
Domine, invocavi te, non confundar.

(Fear and terror have settled upon me;
the shadows have invaded me.
Have mercy on me, Lord; have mercy.
Unto you I commend my spirit.

Hear, O Lord, my prayer,
for you are my refuge
and my succour, all-powerful Lord
and I invoke Thee: let me never be confounded.)