Thirty Years of Early Music

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Program: #04-49 Air Date: Nov 29, 2004

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From the years with the New York Pro Musica to his own Ensemble for Early Music, the successful collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and recent New York Early Music Festival, Fredrick Renz has been a part of the great revival of music in this field; this week he shares with us seven centuries of Christmas music.

NOTE: From the years with the New York Pro Musica to his own Ensemble for Early Music, the successful collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and recent New York Early Music Festival, Fredrick Renz has been a part of the great revival of music in this field; this week he shares with us seven centuries of Christmas music.

For more information about the ensemble, now called Early Music New York:

https://www.earlymusicny.org/

“An absorbing hour of listening and a very attractive alternative soundtrack for the holiday season.”

-- Early Music America

Early Music New York's program of seasonal repertoire is a “Sold-Out” holiday tradition. Recorded in the great Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York City, A Medieval Christmas features lyric songs - sacred and secular - by Hildegard von Bingen, Perotin, von Reuenthal and anonymous composers from the schools of Notre Dame and St. Martial - gloriously sung and deftly played by EM/NY's Artists in Residence.

“Angelus ad virginem” (the song Chaucer referred to in “The Canterbury Tales”), angelic Hildegard chant, earthy 13th-century Italian laude and spirited Spanish cantigas illuminate a treasury of joyous celebration.

Artists: John Alston - bass; Marshall Coid - countertenor, vielle; Todd Frizzell - tenor, symphonia; Wayne Hankin - winds, tenor; Wolodymyr Smishkewych - tenor, percussion; Jon Szabo - baritone, vielle

Produced in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this colorful disc celebrates the winter holiday with Renaissance carols and noels. Selections include: “Green grow'th the holly” and Taunder Naken from the Songbook of Henry VIII, noels by Busnois, Dufay and Brumel, 15th- century English carols, late Renaissance motets, lute songs, villancicos and instrumental dances by Palestrina, Attey, Arbeau and Praetorius' “Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen.”

This full color cover features “The Annunciation” (detail) by Botticelli from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. A generous twenty page booklet includes notes and complete texts with parallel English translations.

65 minutes.

Artists: Todd Frizzell - tenor & harp; Wayne Hankin - winds & tenor; Dan Rigazzi - tenor; Mark Rimple - alto & lute; Mark Sullivan - bass-baritone; Jon Szabo - bass-baritone & vielle

EMF’s Ex cathedra Records continues its highly popular series of holiday recordings with “A Baroque Christmas.” This new CD, produced in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, features 17th- century French noels in full flower, Lutheran Advent hymns masterfully crafted into chorale variations by J.S. Bach’s precursors, Spanish villancicos composed in the New World, arias fashioned in the new Italian opera style, as well as Scots airs and English ballad tunes -- over an hour of uniquely engaging baroque holiday repertoire.

A kaleidoscopic panorama of the Old and New World features composers Praetorius, Schein, Scheidt, Charpentier, Delalande, Frescobaldi, Gagliano, Piccinini and Mexican composers Salazar, Vidales, Ximeno and Mucia. Researched and directed by Frederick Renz, this program is specially chosen for performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and features Early Music New York’s six male voices in consort with theorbo, lute, guitars, cittern, Spanish cross-strung, Italian triple and Celtic harp, bass viola da gamba and chamber organ.

Anonymous composers of unique Scots airs and poets of English ballads with seasonal texts, including “The old year now away is fled,” set to the popular country dances tune “Greensleeves,” enliven this vivid 17th- century Christmas celebration.

Artists: Ryland Angel - countertenor; Thom Baker - tenor; Oliver Brewer - tenor; Todd Frizzell - tenor; Gregory Purnhagen - baritone; Mark Sullivan - bass; Grant Herreid - theorbo, lute, guitars, cittern; Patricia Ann Neely - bass viola da gamba; Jennifer Sayre - Italian triple, Spanish cross-strung and Celtic harps; Dongsok Shin - chamber organ

Early Polish and Czech polyphony including “Messe de Notre Dame” by Guillaume de Machaut.

Medieval motets honoring Bohemia's “Good King Wenceslas” (St. Vaclave) and Poland's St. Stansilaus. ‘Carols’ from the time of patriot Jan Hus, early polyphony from the Codex “Specialnik” celebrating the Nativity. Plus, the only extant Czech medieval dance, and the “Messe de Notre Dame” by Guillaume de Machaut, celebrated French poet/composer and Secretary to the King of Bohemia. Men's voices and instruments.

Artists: Ryland Angel - countertenor; Oliver Brewer - tenor; Joe Damon Chappel - bass; Corey-James Crawford - countertenor; Matthew Hensrud - countertenor; Tam Johnson - tenor; Christa Patton - soprano & alto shawm, bagpipe; Terry Pierce - tenor & bass sackbut; Gregory Purnhagen - baritone; Bruce Rameker - countertenor; David Ronis - tenor; Erik Schmalz - tenor sackbut; Geoffrey Williams - countertenor

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