Hespèrion XXI Anonymous Al-Andalus (13Th C.) Mowachah Billadi Askara
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS PROGRAM Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 8pm First Congregational Church Femina Nova Hespèrion XXI Anonymous Al-Andalus (13th c.) Mowachah Billadi askara Lux Feminæ, 900–1600: Beatritz de Día (ca. 1200) A chantar m’er de so q’ieu no voldria An Invocation of Feminity with Anonymous (Trecento mss.) Lamento di Tristano (instrumental) Seven Portraits of Woman in Ancient Hesperia Montserrat Figueras voice, cithara Femina Amans Pierre Hamon ney, gaita, flutes Martin Codax (13th c.) Ondas do mar Dimitri Psonis oud, santur, morisca Jordi Savall rebab, lira da gamba Bartolomé Cárceres (fl. mid-16th c.) Soleta só jo ací Femina Mater PROGRAM Cárceres Soleta y Verge estich (villancico) Anonymous (Castellón/Berber) Alba (instrumental) Amazigh lullaby Mma gar dada its Femina Antiqua Femina Ludica Anonymous (Sephardic) Hermoza muchachica (instrumental) Anonymous (15th c.) Sibil-la de Mallorca (Oracle) Responsory: Al jorn del judici Anonymous Sephardic (Sofia) La Guirnalda de Rosas: Una matica de ruda Un rei vendrà perpetual Ans que el Judici no serà Femina Gemens Del cel gran foc devallarà Llos puygs e.ls plans seran eguals Anonymous (Andalusia) Lamento (Saeta antigua) Los infants qui nats no seran Mare de Déu pregau per nos The activities of Hespèrion XXI are made possible with support from the Generalitat de Catalunya Departament de Cultura i Mitjans de Comunicació, the Instituto Nacional de las Marcabru (ca. 1100–ca. 1150) Planctus (instrumental) on Pax in nomini Domini Artes Escénias y de la Música of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and the Institut Ramon Llull. This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Charles and Helene Linker. Femina Mistica Cal Performances’ 2009–2010 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. Codex de las Huelgas (13th c.) Flavit auster Llibre Vermell de Montserrat (13th c.) Polorum Regina 10 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 11 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Lux Feminæ, 900–1600: An Invocation of Feminity with Seven Portraits of Woman in Ancient Hesperia 1. Femina Antiqua room filled with light. It was an explosion. It was we shall love one another as birds love cherries, bit- shining. The lighted lamp was drowned in dark- ing through to the very stone, and the landscape Let us imagine, amid the veils of darkness, a ray of ness. When you came. will throw open its windows to gaze in on us. light. In the still depths of silence, let us listen to the limpid sound of a voice. A portent, an oracle, an enigma borne on the air like a bird with a single 4. Femina Amans 7. Femina Gemens wing. It is saying that the world will come to an end: after the night, a black sun will rise. It is say- You feel your body like a mountain yielding stone In your cold, stone prison, the gathered darkness ing that everything will be plunged into the deep: to build houses. You feel the tenderness of a statue watches you. Joy has ebbed away from you, like a the sea will have no shores. It is saying that nothing held gently in the hands of an archaeologist. The sea whose waves fall short of the shore. Time past is will survive: the air will vainly search for lungs. It thrill of a field of sunflowers at dawn. The joy of a a fruit that can never return to the tree, a wine that is saying that death will come and we shall be as well filling with water. The rapture of fallow land knows it cannot return to the blithe roundness of helpless water before a thirsting mouth. Our life under the weight of the plough. The delight of pet- the grape. Time present is a source of pain, cruelly spans no more than the flight of an arrow, from als enfolding the soft, winged body of a bee. The teaching you, a ship, to forget the sea. Memories tense bow to wounded flesh. pleasure of a cloud that finally knows the nature of are hard, like stale bread. Memory is sometimes a the sky it is crossing. And you see the shore break bird that has flown the full expanse of the sky. And in waves upon the sea. When you love. every night you dream of the inquisitor: his finger 2. Femina Mistica points to a stake, wood demanding fire. The future cry lies dormant in the mouth. The flame relentlessly pursues its taper. And paths 5. Femina Mater await the footsteps that create them. Mysticism and Love seek ways toward union: when you are Within the silence throbs the seed. Like colors in Manuel Forcano a root, you desire earth. And tirelessly you make the darkness. Deep in the earth burns a fire with- your way through fathomless gorges and sheer out flames that warms the mineral womb. And in precipices, like a flower searching for colors to that warmth the seed sprouts roots like hands pris- inhabit. You sense the turbulent air-but not the ing open windows. It will grope its way until at last wings-of flight, and on the parched horizon of it finds the only way forward: the light. The shoot your desert you glimpse the taste of water. At long will grow strong and the stalk high, the grain will last, you reach the other side of all the bridges you swell, and when the time is ripe the ear of corn will have crossed. proudly shout: let me be bread. The wind moving in the wheat, a hand ruffling hair: tenderness. 3. Femina Nova 6. Femina Ludica Memories vanish, just as night turns into day. A white light melts them like a tear that bathes the Play is the smile on the face of time. It is the hap- eye without being shed. The life pulsing through piness where desire, sparked by laughter, flares them is brief as a tiny drop of ink poised on the tip like the flame that smouldered at the tip of a fire- of a reed. They last no longer than it takes to trace brand. It is then that we long to close the distance an arabesque on a sheet of paper, to cross the white between our lips and the kiss. And celebrate the desert of a page with the thirst for a few words. In light as if the stars also shone in the day. And sing the sanctuary of seclusion, memory branches into in praise of the love that is possible: the blossom verse and song, and we immerse ourselves in it to of the olive tree aches to be an olive between the bear more lightly the absence of those we love: the teeth. Enough of slaking our thirst with sea water: 12 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 13 PROGRAM NOTES TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS O Lux Lux Feminæ Sibil·la de Mallorca Mallorcan Sibyl UX FEMINÆ is an homage to the light of The manner of singing, therefore, also draws on Anònim (s. XV) Anonymous (15th c.) LWoman. Having sung of that light for so long that intimacy, while also incorporating strength, through music and poetry, I naturally became rhythm, dance and the dramatic power of words. Al jorn del judici On judgment day aware that it has not always been free to shine. Lux The different traditions of Christianity, Judaism parrà qui haurà fayt servici. who served shall be repaid. Feminæ is also a story with music about women and Islam have all felt the need to express that inti- and an invocation to femininity, as the key to macy through the same symbolism: the inner gar- Un rei vendrà perpetual An eternal king will come the spiritual world. Lux Feminæ focuses on seven den, the cloister, the castle of interior mansions as vestit de nostra carn mortal; Dressed in our mortal flesh: aspects of woman in ancient Hesperia, from the spaces of quietude, knowledge and meditation. del cel vindrà tot certament He will come from heaven certainly Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Seven is a sa- Lux Feminæ is celebratory because the best ap- per fer del segle jutjament. To pass judgment on the century. cred number that has been revered by sages and proach to life is to celebrate everything and take Ans que el Judici no serà Before judgment is passed mystics through the ages: it is the union of 4 (the time to celebrate. It is a hymn to the place of un gran senyal se mostrarà: A great sign will show itself: four elements, the four colors from which all the woman through history, focusing on her aspects of lo sol perdrà lo resplendor, The sun will lose its shine colors in the artist’s palette are made…) and 3 (the light: mysticism, sensuality, motherhood, love, la- la terra tremirà de por. The earth will tremble with fear. Trinity, the Pyramid…), symbolizing the union of ment, rejoicing and wisdom. Women sing the story all things both spiritual and earthly, a union which of humanity, celebrating the beauty and possibil- Del cel gran foc devallarà From heaven a great fire shall descend is also embodied in the figure of woman. Seven is ity of being sweet as honeycomb on the tongue; com a sofre molt podirà with a sulphurous stench, the number of the climes, the seas, the heavens and celebrating mystical love, the fruitful womb and la terra cremarà del furor, the earth shall burn with fury la gent haurà molt gran terror and the people with terror blench. the days of Creation; this sacred dimension is also the tender breast that nurtures God; celebrating found in music and poetry and, indeed, in our- the experience of giving birth, of motherhood and Llos puygs e.ls plans seran eguals, Peaks and plains shall be as one, selves, since we have the capacity to make sacred nursing a child; the gift and duty of transmitting aquí ceran los bons e.ls mals: in a place where good and bad; or profound everything that we experience and do.