The Orlando Consort presents a dazzling array of music from the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, combining captivating entertainment and scholarly insight. The unique imagination and originality of their programming, which gloriously embraces diverse themes that remain compellingly relevant today, has marked out the Consort as the outstanding leaders of their field. They have also made a specialization of inviting local choirs to join them in performance – look out for programs marked with an asterisk to see which concerts offer this exciting collaborative opportunity. What’s more, presenters are warmly welcomed to request their own special themed programs. Contact BesenArts for details.

The Orlando Consort takes great pleasure in presenting workshops suitable for all ages and musical abilities, as well as a delightful children’s program, The Worlde Accordinge to Henrietta Fitzjohn, aged 10¾, which provide a unique insight into this remarkable repertoire.

Food, Wine & Song
Music and Feasting in Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe
Companion CD from Harmonia Mundi USA (2001)
Featured composers: Machaut, Dufay, Compère, Isaac, Encina, and Senfl

In the unending quest to please the senses it is hard to imagine a more irresistible combination than good food and good music. Throughout history the two have gone hand in hand and documents have survived testifying in detail to the most tremendous feasts and lavish entertainments during the period explored in this program (1220-1585) by The Orlando Consort, England’s leading male vocal quartet.

Chefs and musicians of the day proved themselves true masters of their crafts. In music, composers intertwined beguiling melodies with sophisticated harmonies and rhythms, and matched vigorous popular tunes with stirring accompaniments. Cookery was conceived both as a precise science and a complex art, and chefs availed themselves of a full range of herbs and spices to create dishes worthy of any grand occasion. The dramatic combination of the two disciplines provides not only a fascinating picture of contemporary eating habits, but also a striking image of social life in general.

France: Begin with a delicate aperitif in honor of St. Francis and the vineyard; then be joined for the main course by rumbustuous Parisian diners (c. 1300). For dessert, the risqué songs of Adam de la Halle.

England: The monks of Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire serve up some of the most sumptuous religious music of the 14th Century, together with prodigious quantities of strong, monastery-brewed ale! Plus 15th Century advice on etiquette and good table manners.

Italy: Follow the whole cooking process, from the trip to the market to guidance on how to produce cheese. Profit from some timeless advice: “Eating an artichoke without salt is like going to the carnival with your own husband.” But don’t be fooled. Though the songs appear to be about food, in reality they are obsessed with sex!

Burgundy: Celebrate the lavish Feast of the Pheasant (1454) with the beautiful songs of Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois. Relax to Compère’s beautiful motet in praise of Bacchus. And revel in the party thrown by the composers Robert Morton and Hayne van Ghizeghem — so loud, it could be heard 200 miles away!

Spain and Portugal: Taste a selection of the finest Spanish wines as described by the none-too-sober composers of the Palace Songbook. Experience the sharp end of haggling for grain in the Portuguese market place.

Germany: Learn of a hundred and one things to do with eggs. Then wash them down with the very finest German beer and wine. As the poet optimistically says: “Drink and sing, for the landlord will surely let us drink on credit until tomorrow!”


Amore: Love and Marriage in the Italian Renaissance
This program was conceived as a direct musical response to a wonderful exhibition organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and first performed at the Metropolitan Museum in February 2009.
Featured composers: Ciconia, Busnoys, Josquin Desprez, Mouton, Arcadelt, and Verdelot

Can there ever have been a greater inspiration to artists than love? As it is with all great art forms, so it is with music. There is surely no greater creative stimulus and throughout musical history composers have sought to express every last aspect of love in all its forms in the medium of sound.

Nevertheless, it is as if it was the advent of the Renaissance that first unleashed the full potential for the expression of love in music and gave musicians the license to explore the subject from all angles. Certainly, Medieval predecessors would tell tales of courtly love, so often concentrating on love unfilled – yearning, estrangement, unattainability – rather than on the ecstasy of requited love. While these elements continued through Renaissance times (and after all they still exist today!), composers dared to express the emotions that were released by the attainment of love.

Yet the whole subject is of course much more complex than that! Reflecting life itself, the compositions of the age provide an overview of different forms of love, not to mention the physical accompaniments that co-exist. This program of exceptionally wide-ranging sentiments, from the pure and innocent through to the ugly and debauched, can only claim to represent a fraction of the different expressions of love to be found in music. Yet, through the beauty and humor provided by our Renaissance forebears, we aim to serve up an entertaining and uplifting musical experience that will not cause too many blushes of modesty or shock!


The Birth of the Renaissance: Guillaume Dufay
Featured composers: Dufay, Compère, Ockeghem, Busnoys

In this concert of stunningly beautiful and exquisitely crafted sacred and secular music, the Orlando Consort celebrates the achievements of Guillaume Dufay, the greatest composer of the late Middle Ages. Born in France around the year 1400, his development of style and his professional career changed the face of music in Western Europe. The international competition to secure his services, along with the tremendous rewards and remuneration he received, established a pattern that ensured that by the time of his death in 1474, musicians throughout Europe were feted as true superstars!

The program features movements from Dufay’s magnificent Missa Sancti Jacobi, dedicated to St. James the Great, with motets and songs that demonstrate his supreme mastery of an extraordinary range of compositional techniques. Complemented by majestic music from contemporaries – Compère, Ockeghem and Busnois – this program illuminates a remarkable and extraordinary period of transition in music history.


England Be Glad: The Accession of King Henry VIII
Featured composers: Dunstaple, Frye, Conrysh, Lambe, King Henry VIII

It is very difficult to think of King Henry VIII without being influenced by the “headline-making” events of his life: the quarrel with Rome, the dissolution of the monasteries, his six wives and, even, his great weight. Yet, inspired by the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Henry’s coronation at Westminster Abbey, this program sets out to capture the spirit of England at the time that the newly married, 17-year-old youth, who had originally been destined for a life in the church, became the head of one of the most powerful nations in the world.

The music in this program offers a snapshot of life in England in 1509. The sacred and secular pieces demonstrate that the country already possessed a rich array of composers and singers, while the subject matter of the songs provide a fascinating glimpse into life under the early Tudors. A picture emerges of a nation ready for change: after the austere reign of King Henry VII that set out to establish stability after years of conflict, the country was eager to enjoy more relaxed times. The new young King, with his dynamic energy and sheer force of personality, appeared to be the ideal monarch.


The Call of the Phoenix: English Voices, Old & New
* CHOIR COLLABORATION OPTION
Companion CDs from Harmonia Mundi USA: The Call of the Phoenix (2002) & Scattered Rhymes (2008)
NOTE: The Orlando Consort also offers a version of this program devoted entirely to 15th Century English repertory.
Featured composers: Anonymous composers, Walter Lambe (d. 1504), Tarik O’Regan (b. 1978)

The Orlando Consort cordially extends an invitation to American choirs to join us in a magical evocation of English music from more than 500 years ago — and the present. This is music of intense passion and committed belief, with the power to raise the human spirit and urge us all to reach out towards a better world.

At the end of the Middle Ages and in the early years of the Renaissance, English composers and musicians, led by such figures as John Dunstaple, Leonel Power, and Walter Frye, were respected as being the very best in Europe. Not only this, but their work bore influence upon that of their European contemporaries in a manner that was not to be repeated until the era of the Beatles. Yet frustratingly little of the music in question has survived — decay, war, and politics from the time of King Henry VIII onwards devastated the work of previous centuries. Remarkably, however, some of this music has re-emerged. The parchment upon which it was written was considered too valuable to be burnt and was instead used for such varied tasks as lining shoes, wrapping fish, and binding new books. It is from uncovering these books that fragments have emerged, like the Phoenix, providing a tantalizing glimpse of this lost musical world.

The cornerstone of this program is the strikingly beautiful Caput Mass, written by an anonymous composer sometime around the year 1435. The Consort will undertake the virtuoso polyphony lines, inviting local choirs to contribute the gloriously free-spirited Plainsong sections that punctuate the movements of the Mass. The Orlando Consort has chosen to celebrate the re-emergence of this wonderful music by pairing it with Scattered Rhymes, a new work scored for the Orlando Consort and Choir by the brilliant young British composer Tarik O’Regan, who is currently serving on the faculties of both Columbia and Yale Universities. This dynamic piece, based on medieval motifs, is a true celebration of the timeless nature of great music and leads to an understanding that our links with our ancestors are stronger than we might sometimes imagine.


The Rose, the Lily, and the Whortleberry
Medieval and Renaissance Musical Representations of Gardens and Horticulture
Companion CD from Harmonia Mundi USA (2006)
Featured composers: Machaut, Brumel, Sermisy, Ceballos, Clemens non Papa, Gombert.

Summon up a pictorial image of Medieval courtly love and it is almost inevitable that it will feature a garden. Throughout history, the symbolic and allegorical allure of flowers has been irresistible to artists, poets and composers who have delighted in the overt beauty and secret codes that flowers convey. This program explores the inventiveness of composers from the 13th to the 16th centuries from all over Europe who have employed floral imagery to illustrate earthly and heavenly love, in pure and sometimes erotic manner.

From France in the 13th and 14th centuries come some of the earliest of all written songs and music by Machaut, possibly the greatest of all musical portrayers of courtly love. From England, spellbinding sacred music from the 15th century in motets from the Song of Songs. From 15th and 16th century Burgundy, France, and Italy, music by Ciconia, Brumel, Clemens non Papa, Gombert, and others that effortlessly switches between enchanting representations of horticulture and sentiments that would make any keen gardener blush!


The Ambassadors
Featured composers: Ghiseghem, Agricola, Dufay, Brumel, Josquin, Peñalosa, La Rue, Cornysh, King Henry VIII.

Diplomacy and intrigue, chivalry and war, beauty and decay, artistry and invention — welcome to the life of a European Ambassador 500 years ago. Through the journals and letters left behind by a complex web of career diplomats, a vivid image survives of the rich opulence and tortured machinations of Renaissance court life. Calling on the experiences of these Ambassadors, the Orlando Consort explores in words and music some of the finest sacred and secular music of Burgundy, Italy, Spain, and England, featuring music of Dufay, Josquin, Brumel, Cornysh, and others. Behind the elegance of exquisite love songs and grand ceremonial motets lies an untold tale of the secret world of the diplomat.

This program is designed to offer a series of snapshots of the European musical scene in the second half of the 15th century and the early part of the 16th century. Music from the great musical centers – Burgundy, France, Spain, Italy and England – is presented in an historical and social context, as described by the early Renaissance equivalent of cultural correspondents, the Ambassadors. Readings of letters and other historical documents by members of the Consort will reveal diplomatic observations and secrets that were only ever intended for the ears of a very few. Accounts of negotiations for marriages, colorful descriptions of imperious ceremonies, and expressions of fears for war stand alongside observations on the singing abilities of Princes, the merits of certain composers, and how much tenors should be paid!


The Anonymous Monk: The Polyphony of Notre Dame
* CHOIR COLLABORATION OPTION
Featured composers: Anonymous composers, Leonin, Perotin

Some time around the year 1275 an English monk traveled from Bury St. Edmunds in the county of Suffolk to Paris, possibly to enroll as a student at the great university there. This monk, who is now conventionally referred to as “Anonymous IV,” has earned a special place in history as the main source of information on the extraordinary music of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Yet what would Anonymous IV have found if he had also made a journey to St. David’s Cathedral in Wales at around the same time? This concert muses on this possibility in words and music, bringing together the virtuosity of the Orlando Consort, unusual readings based on historical research, and the optional collaboration of a local community or university choir.

Through the writings of Anonymous IV we learn of the variety of music sung in daily services, the names of the great composers Leonin and Perotin, and that their style of music had already formed the mainstay of the cathedral repertoire for the best part of a hundred years. Yet he also tells us that Notre Dame polyphony had a much wider currency than its name would imply, suggesting an active academic “export trade.” Traces of cultivation of the music, in manuscripts ranging from superbly decorated books owned by Medieval and Renaissance potentates to tiny scraps of parchment that have survived for 800 years by nothing more than accident, are found all over Europe: from Poland to Spain, and from Rome to St. Andrews in Scotland. Moreover, Anonymous IV names specific singers who were masters of their art, giving rise to the probability that this repertoire would have been well-known in abbeys and cathedrals throughout England, Wales, and Scotland.

The Orlando Consort is delighted to extend an invitation to local singers to join them in the performance of this unique program. Singing plainsong is a wonderfully elevating experience, re-establishing links with our ancestors from hundreds of years ago. Chant was not only the hymn singing of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, but also the building blocks used by composers throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. Singers of all ages and voice-types are welcome — the only qualification needed is the ability to hold a tune! The ideal number of participants is anything between 12 and 50. Workshops are available for singers ages 11 and up, and can be tailored to any level, from beginners to those in conservatory-level training. Consort member Angus Smith is co-author of Let’s Make Medieval Music!, a learning text designed for 11-14 year olds (Stainer and Bell, October 2002).