Give Us That Old Time Music
Sequentia re-creates and performs music from as far back as the 8th century.
Sequentia. Image from Early Music Now concert promotion.
On Saturday evening, Early Music Now hosts Sequentia, an ensemble whose scholarship and talent will immerse the audience in the music of the Medieval Anglo-Saxons and Germanic tribes of the European Northlands during the 8th to 11th centuries.
Perhaps no early music subject is more challenging than the re-creation of music from this era. There was no system of musical notation. There are no surviving instruments, only artists’ renderings. Even written text is limited. Cultures were transitioning from pagan to Christian traditions, often blending the two. Despite the limited knowledge of that era’s music, Sequentia’s leader Benjamin Bagby writes, “There is one thing we must never forget: during this entire period, all of these people – in their huts, their fields, their boats, on horseback, around their cooking fires, their pagan shrines, and even in the first Christian monasteries – were singing, listening to song, myth, instrumental music, and long sung tales of their ancestors’ deeds, real and imagined.”
Sequentia has been dedicated to the performance of Medieval Western European music for 35 years. Founded in Cologne, Germany the group was featured in the first program of the Early Music Now series in 1987. Now based in Paris, the ensemble offers and records many programs on subjects all the way into the 14th Century. This performance will be the group’s fifth in Milwaukee, which included a return for Early Music Now’s 30th year in 2016. Bagby will be joined by instrumentalist Norbert Rodenkirchen and vocalists Hanna Marti and Stef Conner. The featured instruments will include 6-string Germanic harps, triangular harps, wooden flutes and a swan-bone flute.
Many of the songs draw from epic poetry or personal laments. The selections are often harrowing. In The Wife’s Lament, a woman mourns her husband’s absence: “I fled from woe. His cruel kinsmen began to plot, scheming in secret to split us apart. They forced us to live like exiles… But fate is twisted. (Now that my husband is gone it) seems as if it never was … I was forced to live in a cold earth cave, under an oak tree in an unhappy wood … Woe waits for the lover who lies longing.”
Chants offer spells or celebrate life-giving magic herbs. Charms may manage a swarm of bees, cure worms, stop bleeding or soothe a stabbing pain. Sample: “Get out, worm, with your nine little worm babies. (Our Father in Heaven, hallowed by your name.) From the marrow into the bloodstream … Get out, little spear, if you are in here.”
The program will include Anglo-Saxon riddles, some obscure, others transparently ribald. The Old English text, with rough guttural sounds and a complex inflectional system, adds a rhythmic quality to the spoken language. Text in Old English, Old High German, and Old Icelandic will be translated on projected translations at the front of the chapel.
Uniquely, this entire program is available as a video recording on YouTube. (That performance only offers Spanish subtitles, however.) After a review of the program and the translated texts, I can agree with this take from Early Music Now’s Executive & Artistic Director Charles G. Grosz: “I love this program, I think it is one of the most interesting we have ever offered.”
The Sequentia concert begins at 5:00 p.m., Feb. 4, in St. Joseph Chapel (1501 S. Layton Blvd.) There is no pre-concert lecture. The approximate program length is 1 hour and 20 minutes, with no intermission. Tickets may be purchased online.
Parking is available on the street, and in the Sacred Heart Center lot at 1545 S. Layton Blvd. The entrance to the building is located on S. Layton Blvd. For patrons with wheelchairs, walkers, or other accessibility needs, Early Music Now recommends being dropped off on the sidewalk in front of the building entrance, to avoid the distance from the parking lot.
Early Music Now welcomes distinguished violinist Rachel Barton Pine & harpsichordist Jory Vinikour to their next concert on March 4. this duo will perform sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach.
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