phaedrus
LE DIAMANT ET LA MARGUERITE
Habsburg-Burgundian Musical Treasures
In Le Diamant, Phaedrus illuminates the raucous and virtuosic early repertoires of the Renaissance traverso consort during the lifetime of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Using dances, chansons, and textless polyphony transmitted by Habsburg and Burgundian scriptoriums, Le Diamant provides a soundtrack to the equally illustrious public and private sides of the multi-faceted figure of the Archduchess.
Le Diamant takes its name from one particularly mysterious book recorded in Margaret's private library inventory: a lost treatise known only by its title, Traité du Diamante et de la Marguerite. While the contents remain unknown, it is thought that the book was given as a gift to the Archduchess by her father, Maximilian I. Le Diamant et la Marguerite encapsulates the precious quality of the Burgundian chansons in the Augsburger Liederbuch, the lush instrumental consort music in the Codex Leopold and the Linz fragments, and most especially, the impressive basse danse manuscript kept under lock and key in the personal library of Margaret of Austria.
The instrumental depictions found in Flemish prints and in Maximilian I's allegorical works from the early-16th century polish yet another face of Le Diamant. The images connect us to a world in which the transverse flute was celebrated in tandem with the drum during the most important galas and processions, while charting a volatile trajectory into the more intimate consort instrument it became later in the 16th century. Beyond the iconography, traces of the flute's transformation are found in other sources: in Cologne between 1515-1519, the partbooks of Arnt von Aich proposed polyphonic performances on the transverse flute. Even earlier, in the court of Philip the Fair, ‘certaines joueurs de flutes alemans’ were reported in 1504. In Mechelen, the repeated purchases of cases of flutes between 1502-1534 also marked a rising interest in consort-style playing.
The striking images and records of professional flute players in the courts of the Archduchess and the Holy Roman Emperor, together with the innovative repertoires performed by instrumentalists in the early-16th century, have helped Phaedrus chart the course for this impressive concert program. The traverso consort, percussion, lute and voice shine brightly amongst a challenging repertoire in Le Diamant et la Marguerite, proposing a fresh interpretation of the music heard in the early-16th century Burgundian and Habsburg courts.
Program Length: 60 minutes
Featuring:
Miriam Trevisan, voice
Massimiliano Dragoni, percussion
Bor Zuljan, lute
Renaissance traverso consort:
Mara Winter
Charlotte Schneider
Liane Sadler
Luis Martinez Pueyo
ADONIA
16th century Italian music to lament a fallen god
Giorgio Ghisi, Venus and Adonis ca.1570
Through centuries of re-telling the myth of Venus and Adonis, the ritualistic Adonia festival held in ancient Athens has remained a part of the story which fascinated a number of literary figures during the Italian Renaissance. The ritual was both a lamentation of love cruelly stolen by the hands of fate, and a feverish “final dance” with all of life's short-lived pleasures and desires. The ensemble Phaedrus partakes in an experimental musical staging of the Venus and Adonis mythos as transmitted during the Italian Renaissance by setting extracts of Marino's 1623 Adone and from Girolamo Parabosco's La favola d’Adone, published in 1545, to early frottole music. Phaedrus surrounds these newly arranged frottole with instrumental music inspired by the tragic life of Adonis. Elevating the voice with traverso consort and lute, Adonia aims to find points of commonality between historical aesthetics and contemporary experiences of love, amorality, and ecstatic bereavement.
Program length: 60 minutes
Featuring:
Miriam Trevisan, Voice
Bor Zuljan, Renaissance lute
Massimiliano Dragoni, percussion
Renaissance traverso Consort:
Mara Winter
Charlotte Schneider
Johanna Bartz
Luis Martinez Pueyo
MISTICANZA
Talking Nonsense In Renaissance Italy
In Misticanza, Phaedrus sifts through the traces of well-known melodies, folk songs, and poetic fragments cleverly hidden within the frottole of 15th-and-16th century Italy. In a twist inspired by Praetorius' term 'misticanza', the songs are re-imagined through the warped telescope of the Swiss and German 'lanzi', or Landsknecht: the earliest known flute players to have worked in Italy throughout the Renaissance period. Misticanza is full of riddles, humor, and surprising layers of beauty embedded in a unique musical puzzle.
Program Length: 60 minutes
Featuring:
Miriam Trevisan, voice
Massimiliano Dragoni, percussion
Bor Zuljan, lute & voice
Renaissance traverso consort:
Mara Winter
Charlotte Schneider
THE KING'S FLUTES
Early Tudor Court Music
Photos: Espazos Sonoros Festival 2024
The King's Flutes sketches an image of the activities of professional flute players active in England during the early Tudor period. King Henry VIII's acquisition of no less than seventy-two transverse flutes by the time of his death (listed in an inventory from Westminster in 1542) shows that among the plethora of instruments collected by the King throughout his lifetime, the flute held a place of some significance at his court. The Tudor court not only possessed a large number of transverse flutes organized into consorts of similar instruments—they also employed members of the famous Italian Bassano family for over 125 years. With activities based both in London and in Venice, the Bassanos eventually became one of the most beloved wind instrument-making families in Europe in the 16th century. An original traverso consort made by the Bassanos survives today, and is housed in the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona. A copy of the Verona consort is used to perform this concert program.
The music performed in The King's Flutes is representative of the celebratory, as well as the more intimate styles of music performed frequently at the English court, drawing from three manuscripts: GB-Lbl Add. MS 31922 (otherwise known as the “Henry VIII Book”), GB-Lcm MS 1070 (the Anne Boleyn songbook), and finally, GB-Lbl Royal Appendix 58, a collection of lute or keyboard intabulations with a written-out cantus voice dated from around 1540. Phaedrus has taken into account the research that exists which forms a social context for the musical sources, as well as what is known about the lives of wind instrument-players around the time of the production of the aforementioned manuscripts. Lastly, we have used our technical knowledge and personal understanding of playing modern copies of the Renaissance traverso to inform our interpretation of the pieces selected to be performed from these sources.
Program length: 60 minutes without pause
Featuring:
Emma-Lisa Roux, Voice, lute
Traverso Consort:
Mara Winter
Charlotte Schneider
Luis Martinez Pueyo