November 11 & 12, 2016 2016-2017 Season Sponsor Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor St. West With sincere appreciation and gratitude salutes Vivian E. Pilar for her leadership and her support of this production together with choreography by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg and the students of the School of Atelier Ballet Be a part of our next CD Recording! The Consort will be heading into the studio to record The Italian Queen of France For your generous support, you will receive the following benefits: Amount You will receive $10 – $124 advance access to purchase the new CD when it is released in the Fall of 2017 $125 – $499 a copy of the new CD $500 or more two copies of the new CD All project donors will receive a tax receipt and will be listed in the house programs for our 2017-18 season Join us in the gymnasium to offer your support today! ¤HE ITALIAN QuEEN oƒ F|a NCE Pieces marked with an asterisk are translated in the program. Music at Court Bienheureux qui se peut dire* Pierre Bonnet (fl.1580-1600) Bransles de village arr. Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) Voulez-vous donc toujours, madame* Pierre Bonnet Puisque vivre en servitude* Jehan Chardavoine (1538-c.1580) & Pierre Sandrin (c.1490-c.1560) In praise of the Valois Ton nom que mon vers dira* Pierre Cléreau (fl.1539-1570) Gravi pene in amor* Jacques Arcadelt (c.1507-1568) Voici la saison plaisante* Guillaume Costeley (c.1530-1606) Poetry à l’antique La brunelette violette* Claude Le Jeune (c.1530-1600) Comment pensez-vous que je vive* Claude Le Jeune Excerpts from Ballet comique de la Royne Lambert de Beaulieu (fl.1559-1590) Chanson des Sereines* & Jacques Salmon (fl.1571-1586) Réponse de la voute dorée* La Musique des Tritons* La Première Entrée INTERMISSION Please join us for refreshments and the CD Boutique in the Gymnasium. The Divine Orlando Dessus le marché d’Arras* Adrian Willaert (c.1490-1562) & Orlande de Lassus (c.1530-1594) La nuit froide et sombre Orlande de Lassus Spesso in poveri alberghi* Orlande de Lassus Un jeune moine* Orlande de Lassus Les voix de ville I O combien est heureuse* Pierre Certon (c.1510-1572) & Adrian LeRoy (c.1520-1598) L’ennuy qui me tourmente* arr. from Chardavoine & LeRoy La seconde Fantaisie Grégoire Brayssing (fl.1547-1560) O ma dame pers-je mon temps?* arr. LeRoy Mignonne allons voir* arr. from Chardavoine Les voix de ville II Avril l’honneur arr. from Chardavoine & Fuyons tous d’amour le jeu* & Jean d’Estrée (early 16th c. – 1576) Mon seul bien* arr. from Chardavoine Tonight’s Performers are: Staff & Administration The Toronto Consort David Fallis, Artistic Director Michelle Knight, Managing Director Adam Thomas Smith, Marketing Director Michele DeBoer, soprano Nellie Austin, Bookkeeper David Fallis, tenor, percussion Kiran Hacker, Graphic Designer Yara Jakymiw, Season Brochure Graphic Designer Ben Grossman, hurdy-gurdy, percussion Martin Reis, Derek Haukenfreres Katherine Hill, soprano, bass viol & Ruth Denton, Box Office Peter Smurlick, Database Consultant Paul Jenkins, tenor, harpsichord Gordon Baker, Stage Manager Terry McKenna, lute, guitar Cecilia Booth, Front of House, Volunteer Coordinator Gordon Peck, Technical Director Alison Melville, recorder Sam Elliott, Intermissions & Receptions John Pepper, bass Margaret Matian, CD Sales and Event Assistant Heather Engli, Touring Laura Pudwell, mezzo-soprano Board of Directors Ann Posen, President John Ison, Treasurer Kim Condon, Secretary Harry Deeg Chester Gryski Featuring students from Garth Laurie the School of Atelier Ballet Trini Mitra Sara Morgan Tiffany Grace Tobias Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, Choreographer Heather Turnbull Michael Legouffe, Costumes Manon Enns-Lapointe, Dancer Follow us on Facebook! Laura Harris, Dancer 427 Bloor Street West, Toronto ON M5S 1X7 Rebecca Moranis, Dancer Box Office 416-964-6337 Eleonora Tomilin, Dancer Admin 416-966-1045 | [email protected] TorontoConsort.org Thank You The Toronto Consort gratefully acknowledges the generous ongoing support of Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, our sponsor and foundation partners, our long-time government funders and our many wonderful dedicated volunteers. Corporate & Community Supporters Foundation Supporters The J.P. Bickell Foundation, The Lloyd Carr-Harris Foundation, The McLean Foundation, The Keith Foundation at the Strategic Charitable Giving Foundation, The F.K. Morrow Foundation, The Catherine & Maxwell Meighen Foundation, The Ed Mirvish Family Foundation, Audrey S. Hellyer Charitable Foundation, The Mary Margaret Webb Foundation Special Thanks Many thanks to Luke Arnason, Jane Couchman, Greig Dunn, Antonio Ricci, Guillaume Bernardi, and Anne-Louise Lanteigne for their help with research and translations. Many thanks to our team of over 100 volunteers who provide ushering, event hosting and administrative support. Program Notes Few figures in the Renaissance have provoked French writers of the time railed against what as much controversy among historians as they saw as innate Italian deception and cold- Catherine de Medici (1519-1589). Married at a bloodedness) and snobbery (she was, after all, young age to a French royal prince (who, being only a banker’s daughter – although solely on the second son of Francis I, was not expected her father Lorenzo de Medici’s side. One of to become king), she became queen consort of the ironies of the mostly French anti-Catherine France in 1547. With the sudden death of her sentiment is that her mother was Madeleine de husband Henri II in 1559, she spent the rest la Tour d’Auvergne, a niece of Francis I and of of her life trying to protect the fortunes of her pure laine French noble heritage). young children, especially the three boys who became Valois kings (Francis II, Charles IX and Thankfully, for this evening’s concert, we need Henri III). Throughout their reigns, Catherine, not dwell on Catherine’s political and religious as regent or queen mother, had a decisive role in policies, but can focus on the indisputable royal policy and activities. artistic legacy she created. As a daughter of the Italian Renaissance, she believed fervently in the These years were tumultuous and violent power of art to enhance a ruler’s status, and she ones in France, wracked as they were by the did not stint on commissioning and fostering wars between Catholics and Huguenots, works of painting, sculpture, architecture, both sides riddled with factions with varying music, dance, theatre, design and literature. She degrees of loyalty to the crown. Much of the is well known for extravagant spectacles known controversy around Catherine centres on the as “magnificences” combining music, dance, question of her policies and actions in these theatre and poetry. The most famous of these civil wars. Was she genuinely trying to make is one of the events surrounding the marriage peace, as might be suggested by her numerous of the Duc de Joyeuse (one of Henri III’s attempts at bringing the sides together, and “favourites”) and Marguerite de Lorraine in the treaties and edicts which resulted? Or was 1581, when the Ballet comique de la Royne was she a cynical manipulator of events, set only on first presented. This work is often considered the preserving her power, and deeply implicated in first true ballet, since it tells a story in singing such atrocities as the St. Bartholomew’s Day and dance, and is seen as a precursor of French massacre? Perhaps the lowest estimation of her baroque opera. We are so pleased to welcome comes from the influential nineteenth-century senior students from the School of Atelier Ballet historian Jules Michelet, who called her a to give us a taste of that evening, with original “maggot that came out of Italy’s tomb”. Recent choreography by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg. historians have tended to be more nuanced, many seeing her as understandably trying to Music was a constant feature of court life, and maintain the power of the throne, herself beset despite the Wars of Religion, mid-century by deeply-held misogyny (how could a woman French music flourished, represented by many be fit to exercise power?), xenophobia (many composers on tonight’s program, including Pierre Bonnet (a singer in Catherine’s employ), 1516. (There is a conference taking place this Adrian LeRoy (a leading publisher of courtly weekend at the University of Toronto marking music, and arranger of this music for lute and the quincentenary of the first publication of guitar), Guillaume Costeley (court organist, this immensely influential poem; some of the composer, and sometime music teacher for conference participants are with us tonight.) the ten-year-old sovereign Charles IX) and Catherine had a copy of Orlando in her library, Pierre Sandrin (singer and composer in the there was always significant Italian literary royal chapel). influence at Catherine’s court, and Ariosto, a friend of the Medici family, had written a brief We also present a group of pieces by Orlande tender ode in 1519 on hearing that Catherine, de Lassus, the most famous composer of his whose mother died in childbirth, had been fully time, adored by Charles IX. (Charles asked if orphaned by the death of Lorenzo de Medici Lassus would leave the Dukes of Bavaria to less than a month later. come and work at the French court, but to no avail.) We know from letters that Charles was A single branch buds, and lo, particularly enamoured of Un jeune moine, I am distraught with hope and fear, a saucy popular song given contrapuntal Whether winter will let it grow, treatment by Lassus. Or blight it on the growing bier. Catherine was a supporter of poets, including In exploring this little-heard French the renowned Pierre de Ronsard, who wrote Renaissance secular repertoire, we have been a number of the texts on tonight’s program. struck by a couple of noticeable characteristics.