MEDI2015/16A PA CK www.earlymusictoday.com Innovative and dynamic opportunities to promote your brand ABOUT EARLY MUSIC TODAY Early Music Today embraces all those who enjoy playing, singing or listening to early music. It spans all aspects of the subject, with features on today’s top performers, issues of performance practice, innovative early music projects and festivals taking place all over the world. Our news and views section keep readers up to date with the latest events and discoveries in the early music world, while our reviews of CDs, DVDs, books and performances are written by some of the country’s top early music specialists. Our listings section also offers comprehensive coverage of concerts happening across the UK. For those looking for an introduction to early music right up to the conservatoire student, Early Music Today is the definitive guide to the early music scene. ‘THERE ARE VERY FEW PUBLICATIONS THAT SO EFFECTIVELY COMBINE THE WORLDS OF “THE BUSIness” anD “THE ART” AS EFFECTIVELY AND SEAMLESSLY AS EARLY MUSIC TODAY, A MAGAZINE WHICH NO DOUBT MANY PROFESSIONALS AND AMATEUR MUSIC-LovERS ALIKE REACH FOR TO KEEP UP WITH THE BUSY WORLD OF EARLY MUSIC. MANY CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS EXCEPTIONAL MAGAZINE FOR ITS CONTINUED SUCCess!’ Mahan Esfahani www.earlymusictoday.com WHY ADVERTISE WITH EARLY MUSIC TODAY? Established over 20 years ago, EMT actively engages with all aspects of early music making in the UK and abroad and boasts a readership ranging from ardent medievalists to baroque aficionados. We have the largest audience for the early music genre and as part of the Rhinegold Publishing stable, we are at the centre of the classical music industry. As well as our subscribers, Early Music Today is distributed to members of several major music organisations through our digital partnership scheme, as well as with all subscription copies of our sister title Classical Music. THE FACTS » Frequency: quarterly » Readership: 12,000 (plus 20,000 Classical Music readers) » Regular advertisers: The Sixteen, American Bach Soloists, Gimell, Early Music Shop, Yale, Chandos, early music festivals, top instrument makers » Geography: Early Music Today’s audience is truly global, with only 48% of our total readership based in the UK. While almost 90% of our print readers reside in the UK, our growing digital audience is nearly 60% non-UK The Orlando Consort: much the same way as dial-a-pizza!’ sessions some time in advance – not from his colleagues about when they’ll ‘the first early music boy band’ The Machaut project began with the least so that we can report back and get to hear his Brünnhilde. It was Martin ‘song-cycle’ generally regarded as confer with the editorial team on Vogel (in 1962) who noticed the ‘Tristan Machaut’s masterwork Le voir dit, and decisions relating to ficta and so on – chord’ in a work by Machaut without, of UNSUNG HEROES this first volume in the series was plus rehearsals nearer to the actual course, the harmonic implications that received with considerable critical recording. The nature of this music also make it meaningful. That is amusing, EARLY DANCE acclaim. The chansons within chart the means that we do a lot of work on our but maybe Machaut can be compared to For me, early dance is about connections Morocco, trying to explain to a teenage in the silly dances, which I love. My course of a real or imagined love affair – own in between group rehearsals. For Wagner: a demanding, multi-talented between people. I measure the success of a girl the poise necessary to make a pavan favourites are those that play out like a Smith draws artistic comparisons with one thing, a lot of practice goes into our creator of musical drama and a self- Playford’s Ceilidh by how many people I look good. I stumbled over the words and game, with the dancers chasing and German Romantic song-cycles. Looking attempts to master the medieval French publicist, micro-managing every aspect dance with; I measure the strength of one resorted to demonstrating again, at which spurning and selecting bystanders to join back, as we do through the distorting pronunciation!’ of his work? of my friendships by our ability to silently point she asked ‘Comme une princess?’ – not the fun. It’s a side of history that glass of history, we might fail to It’s worth noting at this point that the If, like me, you spent your youth dance a Passamezzo! As a ballet dancer by only did she understand the point I was sometimes gets lost. It’s easy to get appreciate how original Machaut was as Orlando Consort have form with plugged into a Walkman listening to training, I’ve always found the contrast trying to make, but she summed it up in a caught up in dates of battles and names a multidisciplinary artist. Mark Dobell Machaut, having recorded an extremely David Munrow’s revelatory Ars nova rather enjoyable: there’s a sort of group way I’ve used many times since then! of kings and forget that the past was (tenor) points out that ‘his work was well-received disc, Dreams in the pleasure recordings (to which Smith pays warm co-operation required for most early Between us, we bridged the gap. Despite populated by people who, like us, played unrivalled for centuries’ and when Smith dances that is not always present in a linguistic differences, the workshops have and danced for fun. By dancing those calls Machaut probably ‘the greatest ballet class. In general, the steps in early resulted in some fantastic cross-cultural dances that are utterly, unavoidably singer-songwriter of all time’, Donald Academia and performers can work together dance are simpler than in ballet, and so pieces, one of my favourites being a ridiculous, we remind ourselves that our Greig (baritone) suggests – only half the focus is less on individual perfection galliard mixed with pieces of street early modern antecedents weren’t just joking – that he might be viewed as ‘the to create a very valuable resource that can be than on team effort and communication. acrobatics thought up by the boys we dour-faced merchants, having portraits James Taylor of his day!’ appreciated on all sorts of levels, from casual The fun is in the floor patterns and the were working with. made of them unsmiling in their best The interaction between the four listener to expert musicologist detailed devices, the contact between eyes In a performance, early dance helps to clothes. They, like us, laughed and flirted, current members of the group is relaxed and hands, and the measured spaces connect the musicians and the audience by and occasionally hand-jived (don’t believe and mutually respectful – the quality of between bodies. Dances that would be adding another dimension. For younger me? Ask someone to dance Sweet Kate their listening to each other in a social garden, for Deutsche Grammophon’s tribute regarding the quality of the impossible to dance alone look beautiful in audiences in particular I’ve found dance, for you!). That connection is something situation evokes their effectiveness as an Archiv label in 1997 (reissued 2007) with singing), you will recognise how far we a pair or group – it’s the connections that along with costume and explanations of pretty magical. ensemble. I suggested to them that the group’s starting lineup. Smith relates have travelled in musicology and make it work. the instruments, can bring the music to Smith and Greig, as the two founding that ‘working on that project, and the performance practice. Although, The connections early dance can inspire life. At its best, dance can physically drag ANNIE HOYLE members, might seem to be gently in reception that it received, gave us the arguably, the use of instruments where are especially powerful when they bridge the audience in – there’s nothing quite like charge and asked whether in rehearsal confidence that all-vocal performances appropriate might bring us nearer to cultural or linguistic gaps. I’ve been lucky a farandole to get people moving, and to the group behaves like a democracy. of this repertoire can work very Machaut’s ideal, these new recordings FURTHER INFORMATION The modernisation enough to perform and lead early dance challenge the conception that early music Smith responds: ‘Nobody is in charge – effectively.’ will provide a benchmark against which workshops in Morocco, often with is a slightly stuffy type of culture, rather Early Dance Circle we are completely democratic, though That they make it sound so easy is a future a cappella interpretations will be schoolchildren whose English is almost as than the very living and lively art form www.earlydancecircle.co.uk Don and I may seem to have more to say tribute to their technical expertise and measured. basic as my French. I’m amazed by how that we love. Nonsuch History and Dance about the group simply because we are musical intelligence. Smith mentions www.nonsuchdance.co.uk E ERI much can be shared through dancing Early dance also makes a rather special RIC the “originals”. We all put forward that, on the first read-through, they The Orlando Consort’s The dart of love is Norwich Historical Dance C of Machaut together, even when words fail. I connection with people through time. For R R ICH I come across passages about which they reviewed on page 41. www.norwichhistoricaldance.org.uk Rebecca Tavener explores the ways in which a new digital project and recordings from the C suggestions in rehearsals and, genuinely, HM remember my first ever workshop in me, nowhere is this more keenly felt than M we very rarely disagree.