Angels with vielles

Margriet Tindemans

Shira Kammen and Margriet Tindemans explained nothing about the music they played Saturday afternoon on the Early Music Now series.

They didn’t have to. To hear the music was to understand that in 14th-century Italy, poems had a way of starting life as or evolving into solo songs, and then into part-songs (madrigals and such). Instrumental arrangements were natural outgrowths. Often, those songs took on yet another life as dance music.

Saturday at All Saints’ Cathedral, Kammen, Tindemans and, sometimes, percussionist Danny Mallon made the connections. They played 20 secular numbers from the 119 in British Library Additional 29987, a manuscript of works by Italian Trecento composers The most famous of them is Francesco Landini. (What do you mean you never heard of Landini? They named a cadence after him!)

Kammen played vielle, rebec and harp and Tindemans played vielle and harp. Tindemans sang two songs in clear, warm tones, as Kammen played the other part on one of her instruments. They rendered the first section of Egidus

Shira Kammen

de Francia’s Mille merçede amor as an unaccompanied vocal duet. Then Tindemans sang on as Kammen switched her line to the mellow vielle then switched back to singing in the last section. Thus they showed the common late-medieval practice of playing or singing as the moment inspired.

Some of the songs unfold as florid recitatives. The topic, inevitably, is the pain of unrequited love. As Kammen plinked out occasional supporting notes on the harp, Tindemans sang Ochi dolente mie (My grieving eyes) with great expressive freedom and ardent despair. She drew the same sentiments from the next number, the anonymous Lamento de Tristan — La Rota, but this time on the vielle.

By the way, both Tindemans and Kammen drew remarkable nuance from these five-string instruments. We’re accustomed the Romantic throb of vibrato as a key expressive component of modern string playing, but vibrato apparently is not part of the medieval string player’s bag of tricks. They did it all with tempo and subtle changes in speed and pressure on their light little convex bows. Tindemans played a viola-sized instrument gamba-style, with the bottom of it resting on her thigh. Kammen played a slightly smaller (and presumably higher-pitched vielle) and occasionally switched to the nasal, Moorish rebec.

Danny Mallon

Many of the part songs had propulsive rhythms and meter, typically in 6/8 with hemiolas (ONE two three FOUR five six vs. ONE and TWO and THREE and) or cross-rhythms as change-ups. Mallon added percussive pepper to the half-dozen or so full-blown dance numbers.

All this music was polyphonic and in the old Church modes, but nothing about it was  churchy or even old. A lot of it sounds like Celtic dance fiddling. The rest? Sad songs. Then as now, people danced and people cried.

This program sold out the beautifully refurbished All Saints’ Cathedral. Two concerts remain on this 25th Early Music Now season. Find out more at EMN’s website.

Display picture on the A&C page: Detail from Angel in Green with Vielle, from the San Francesco Altar Piece in the National Museum of the United Kingdom. Attributed to an associate of Leonardo da Vinci.

Get more out of TCD. Check out our FAQ/User Guide.