Friday, February 26, 2016, 8pm First Congregational Church

Berkeley RADICAL: The Natural World , viol Frank McGuire , bodhrán

MAN & NATURE MUSICAL HUMORS & LANDSCAPES In the English, Irish, Scottish and American traditions

PROGRAM

The Caledonia Set The Humours of Scariff Traditional Irish Archibald MacDonald of Keppoch Traditional Irish The Musical Priest / Scotch Mary Captain Simon Fraser (1816 Collection) Caledonia’s Wail for Niel Gow Traditional Irish Sackow’s Jig (Treble Viol)

The Musicall Humors Tobias Hume, 1605 A Souldiers March Captaine Hume’s Pavin A Souldiers Galliard Harke, harke Good againe A Souldiers Resolution (Bass Viol, the Lute Tunning)

Flowers of Edinburg Traditional Scottish Lady Mary Hay’s Scots Measure Shetland Tune Da Slockit Light Reel The Flowers of Edinburg Niel Gow (1727–1807) Lament for the Death of his Second Wife Fisher’s Hornpipe Tomas Anderson Peter’s Peerie Boat (Treble Viol)

INTERMISSION The Bells Alfonso Ferrabosco II Coranto Thomas Ford Why not here John Playford La Cloche & Saraband (Bass Viol, Lyra way, the First tuning)

The Donegal Set Traditional Irish The Tuttle’s Reel Turlough O’Carolan Planxty Irwin O’Neill, Chicago 1903 Alexander’s Hornpipe Jimmy Holme’s Favorite Donegal tradition Gusty’s Frolics (Treble Viol)

THE LORD MOIRA’S SET Ryan’s Collection (Boston, 1883) Regents Rant Crabs in the Skillet—Slow jig The Sword dance Lord Moira Lord Moira’s Hornpipe (Bass Viol Lyra-way: the Bagpipes tuning)

IRISH LANDSCAPES The Morning Dew The Hills of Ireland Apples in the Winter The Rocky Road to Dublin The Kid on the Mountain Morrison’s Jig (Treble Viol)

This performance is made possible, in part, by Patron Sponsors Will and Linda Schieber. Cal Performances’ '%&(–'%&) season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES

THE CELTIC VIOL 19th cen tury in Germany, mainly in bourgeois In praise of transmission circles. The phenomenon of written music has allowed a formidable development of musical The man that hath no music in himself, forms and instruments, but at the same time it Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, has contributed to the neglect and relegation Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; to a second-class category of all those forms The motions of his spirit are dull as the night, of living music which have traditionally ac - And the affections dark as Erebus companied the daily lives of the vast majority: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. in other words, popular music. That is why Celtic music for the fiddle in —William Shakespeare The Merchant of Scotland and Ireland (as well as the music of Venice , Act V, Scene 1 the communities who emigrated from those countries and settled in North America) con - If the face is the mirror of the soul, a people’s stitutes a unique exception in Western Europe music is the reflection of the spirit of its iden - and is one of the richest and most beautiful tity, individual in origin but taking shape over legacies of all the living musical traditions of time as the collective image of a cultural space our time. The thousands of Airs , Pastorals , which is unique and specific to that people. Laments, Hornpipes, Reels, Rants, Jigs, etc., All music passed on and preserved by the oral which have been preserved by the various tradition is the result of a felicitous survival oral traditions, lovingly and perseveringly following a long process of selection and syn - passed on from parents to their children, thesis. Unlike some Oriental cultures which from one generation to the next, are true mu - have evolved chiefly within an oral tradition, sical survivors, music which has had the priv - in the West only those types of music com - ilege and, as far as we are concerned, the good monly known as traditional, popular or folk luck to survive the inevitable and constant music have been preserved thanks to unwrit - cultural amnesia, as well as the globalizing ten means of transmission. folly, of humanity. The invention of musical notation, a phe - Just as I was charmed and fascinated in nomenon very often linked to literary social 1965 by the forgotten voice of the viola da circles, has allowed some cultures, such as gamba , we decided, back in 1975, from our those of China, Korea, Japan, and Western very first concerts and recordings with Europe, to develop from ancient times many Montserrat Figueras and Hespèrion XX, to in - systems of notation which have been used in clude alongside the repertoire of Court and quite different situations. In other cultures, Church music the wonderful music of the however, such as those of the Middle East (ex - Spanish Jews (brutally expelled in 1492), cept Turkey) and South and Southwest Asia, it which for more than five centuries has been is only in the last hundred years or so that such preserved by the oral traditions of the various systems have evolved to any significant extent. Sephardic communities who settled around In the “serious” music of Western Europe, mu - the Mediterranean. It should be remembered sical communication based on the unwritten that, barring a few exceptions (Falla, Bartók, form survived until the end of the 17th cen - Villa-Lobos, Kodály, etc.), the misguided un - tury, but only in musical practices associated derestimation of this so-called “popular” or with improvisation and accompaniment on “folk” music has inevitably confined it to its the bass continuo, and until somewhat later own separate world, where it has had little in music-making circles linked to the spiri - communication with and, above all, little re - tual and temporal powers of the Church and spect from the world of so-called “classical” the Court. It survived beyond the 17th cen - music. Moreover, the terrible amnesia caused tury in England and especially during the by our loss of knowledge of ancient musical PROGRAM NOTES practice has often prevented us from appreci - recorded many works for solo viol and viol ating the true worth of this music, even in the consort by composers from Christopher Tye case of works by such renowned musicians as to Henry Purcell, including Tobias Hume, O’Carolan and others, of which only the Alfonso Ferrabosco, William Corkine, melodic line has survived. Thus, the major William Brade, John Dowland, William Byrd, dictionaries of music say of O’Carolan’s com - Thomas Ford, Orlando Gibbons, John Jenkins, positions that “unfortunately most are only in William Lawes, John Playford, and Matthew single line form, so that it is not definitely Locke, as well as anonymous Elizabethan and known how he harmonized or accompanied Jacobean composers. But it was the discovery his melodies.” Of course, it is a pity that we do of manuscripts such as the Manchester Gamba not know exactly how the accompaniment for Book , containing more than 30 different tun - any given piece was played, but it should also ings or scordatura tunings for the viol, and in be remembered that, in many of these pieces, particular the bagpipe tunings, which made such is the beauty and emotion of the melody me realize that the viol also had a very real that nothing else is required. Moreover, in the connection with an ancient Celtic tradition case of pieces requiring accompaniment, which had been forgotten, just as the very ex - enough is now known about the practice of istence of the instrument had sunk into obliv - improvised accompaniment in the 17th and ion after the death of the last violists such as 18th centuries to be able to reconstitute artis - K.F. Abel, who in his lifetime astonished audi - tically satisfying versions. Similar reasoning ences with the beauty and expressiveness of his led to J.S. Bach’s six suites for unaccompanied improvisations on the viola da gamba . Charles cello being “completed” during the 19th cen - Burney writes of him as follows: “I have heard tury with a piano accompaniment, the work him modulate in private on his six-stringed remaining neglected by performers as music base with such practical readiness and depth fit for the concert hall for more than two hun - of science, as astonished the late Lord Kelly dred years. It was not until the end of the 19th and Bach, as much as myself.” century that they were rediscovered—in In recent years, I first set about studying 1890!—by a young Pablo Casals who, some the 17th century collections containing ten years later, around 1900, began to intro - Scottish and Irish music, and then I discov - duce them to concert-goers all over the world. ered the extraordinary richness of the princi - My first acquaintance with Celtic music pal collections of Celtic music, such as goes back to 1977–78, when we visited George Farquhar Graham’s The Songs of Kilkenny to give a concert with Hespèrion Scotland (Edinburgh, 1848); George Petrie’s XX. During the Festival the streets, squares Complete Irish Music (London, 1852, re- and pubs were teeming with all kinds of mu - edited in 1902-1905); William Bradbury sicians (fiddlers, flute-players…) performing Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883); non-stop solo or accompanied (on a guitar or O’Neill Music Of Ireland (New York, 1903) a small harp). What incredible vitality! And it and The Dance Music Of Ireland (New York, was magical to see so many musicians living 1907 ); P.W. Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and their music with that degree of intensity and Songs (London, 1909); James Hunter’s emotion! I also got to know the music by lis - The Fiddle Music of Scotland (Edinburgh, tening to historic recordings from the 1920s, 1979); Alastair J. Hardie’s The Caledonian including those by the brilliant James Schott Companion (Edinburgh, 1981); and Aloys Skinner and Joe MacLean, as well as concerts Fleischmann’s Sources of Irish Traditional by groups such as the Chieftains and others. Music, c. 1600 –1855 (New York and London, Over the last 30 years I have also been ab - 1997), among others. solutely fascinated by the British repertory for I was immediately surprised to find that the viol, and I have studied, performed, and there was such an abundance of documented

PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES historical material. Altogether, these collec - this program is above all a fervent tribute to tions contain more than 10,000 pieces, all of the art of transmission, to the talent of all the great artistic quality! I was also very interested musicians who have created this wonderful to discover that certain Celtic melodies con - legacy, and also to all those who, no less im - tained figures, or background phrases, very portantly, have passed it on from generation similar to those occurring in old Catalan to generation and so kept it vibrantly alive. songs, for example, those we find in “El testa - Music expresses and prolongs what words ment d’Amèlia” and “Màiri Bhàn Òg.” The cannot say, and time acts as a filter, distilling most difficult task has been to limit the selec - these orally transmitted melodies and paring tion of music on this program to about 30 of them down to the truly essential. And that is the most representative pieces of different ori - how all these pieces, in the majority of cases gins and periods, as well as to choose the var - by anonymous authors, thanks to their vital - ious tunings adapted to each type of music. I ity, beauty, emotion and charm, have become have combined Nicolas Chappuy’s 1750 treble an indispensable part of the celebration of the viol and Barak Norman’s 1697 lyra-viol with most significant moments in the different its powerful, warm sound (in the pieces from stages of our daily life. Songs to dispel sadness the Manchester manuscript and Ryan’s Boston or celebrate good news, dances to express Collection). I have selected 30 pieces, grouped moments of happiness and joy, laments to in suites or sets according to their key. We take overcome the loss of a loved one or the mem - a deliberately sober approach in order to show ory of an unhappy event… All these wonder - that the music, through the force and magic ful yet fragile works represent the sensitive of its musical discourse, contains within itself and most intimately personal contribution of all the essential ingredients. I am also very often marginalized or persecuted cultures to aware of the possibly huge distance between the history of musical creation. They remain the playing of a musician who was born to this and will continue to remain in our hearts as kind of music and another who has had to the true voices and the essential spirit of a civ - spend several years learning it and knows that ilization which has succeeded in staying alive, he still has much to learn. I only hope that my thanks to music—the memory and soul of its experience with Renaissance and Baroque historical identity. music has enabled me to offer an interpreta - —Jordi Savall tion, which is different from the interpreta - tions heard in the modern traditions. Finally, Translated by Jacqueline Minett ABOUT THE ARTISTS

founded with Montserrat Figueras in 1998, Jordi Savall has proved not only that early music does not have to be elitist, but that it can appeal to increasingly diverse and nu - merous audiences of all ages. As the critic Allan Kozinn wrote in the New York Times , his vast concert and recording career can be described as “not simply a matter of revival, but of imaginative reanimation.” Savall has recorded and released more than 230 albums covering the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical music repertories, with a special focus on the Hispanic and Mediterranean musical her - itage, receiving many awards and distinctions such as the Midem Classical Award, the International Classical Music Award and the Grammy Award. His concert programs have made music an instrument of mediation to achieve understanding and peace between different and sometimes warring peoples and cultures. Accordingly, guest artists appearing with his ensembles include Arab, Israeli, For more than 50 years, Jordi Savall , one of Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Afghan, Mexican, the most versatile musical personalities of his and North American musicians. In 2008 Jordi generation, has rescued musical gems from Savall was appointed European Union the obscurity of neglect and oblivion and Ambassador for intercultural dialogue and, given them back for all to enjoy. A tireless re - together with Montserrat Figueras, was searcher into early music, he interprets and named “Artist for Peace” under the UNESCO performs the repertory both as a gambist and Goodwill Ambassadors program. a conductor. His activities as a concert per - He has played a seminal role in the redis - former, teacher, researcher, and creator of covery and performance of Una cosa new musical and cultural projects have made rara and Il burbero di buon cuore by the him a leading figure in the reappraisal of his - composer Vincent Martín i Soler. He has also torical music. Together with Montserrat conducted and Figueras, he founded the ensembles La Capella Reial de Catalunya in perform - Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de ances of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo , Vivaldi’s Catalunya (1987), and Le Concert des Farnace , Fux’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Nations (1989), with whom he explores and Vivaldi’s Il Teuzzone . creates a world of emotion and beauty shared Jordi Savall’s prolific musical career has with millions of early music enthusiasts brought him the highest national and inter - around the world. national distinctions, including honorary Through his essential contribution to Alain doctorates from the Universities of Evora Corneau’s film Tous les Matins du Monde , (Portugal), (Catalonia), Louvain which won a César for the best soundtrack, (Belgium), and Basel (Switzerland), the order his busy concert schedule (140 concerts per of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur year), his recordings (six albums per year), (France), the Praetorius Music Prize awarded and his own record label, Alia Vox, which he by the Ministry of Culture and Science of

PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Lower Saxony, the Gold Medal of the of Radio Nan Gael from the Irish Embassy in Generalitat of Catalonia, and the prestigious Moscow with Sean O’Rourke and Maggie Léonie Sonning Prize, which is considered Macinnes. In 2001 he formed Lyra Celtica with the Nobel prize of the music world. “Jordi Sean O’Rourke and Chuck Flemming, the trio Savall testifies to a common cultural inheri - was later joined by Lynn Tocker. McGuire has tance of infinite variety. He is a man for our spent years studying many styles of percussion time” ( The Guardian ). and percussion instruments, and has per - formed with outstanding musicians from the Frank McGuire worlds of folk, blues, old-time Americana, has been playing bluegrass, soul, gospel and classical music. In music since he 2007 he was invited as a guest of honor to the was old enough to Kremlin, to the first-ever Kremlin Zoria (the hold an instru - Russian equivalent of the Edinburgh Tattoo). ment. His father He has performed many times at Celtic and grandfather Connections with banjo maestro Alison both played tradi - Brown. And recently, he has been working tional music; he with American singer Lea Gilmour on the played in pipe project Umoja Gaelic , which will tour the UK bands and later and United States. In 2010 McGuire recorded began playing tra - with the legendary viol de gamba player and ditional music as composer Jordi Savall and harpist Andrew well. In the early part of his career, McGuire Lawrence King, for the album Celtic Viol played in various bands, and then formed Vol. 1. The record received one of the highest Gaelum with Kevin Allison from Hot Toddy. awards in music: The Premio De la Musica, For many years, he played and taught in Russia, judged by members of the Spanish Academy playing in festivals and appearing on television of Music, Arts and Knowledge, Academia De and radio, including the first ever live broad cast Las Artes Y Las Ciencias De La Musica.