European Medieval ensemble to play at Erasmus Huis
European Medieval ensemble to play at Erasmus Huis
By Joe Mudnich
JAKARTA (JP): As the sounds of gamelan used to fill the royal
courts of Java, another kind of courtly music will soon visit
Indonesia, a music that six centuries ago echoed in the chambers
of kings in European Middle Ages.
The Ferrara Ensemble, an international group of performers,
will be presenting a free concert of medieval music at Erasmus
Huis in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
Sponsored by the German Goethe-Institut and the Swiss Pro
Helvetia organizations, the six-member ensemble of musicians and
vocalists will perform European courtly dance music, ballads and
love poems from the 11th through the 15th centuries.
Though it reaches cross centuries, this venerable music bears
a certain resemblance to the music of today.
"The esthetics of the...Middle Ages were based upon
mathematics to a degree that is perhaps only seen again in the
current Age of Digital Technology," writes instrumentalists
Crawford Young in the program notes.
Learned men of the Middle Ages were obsessed with numbers,
particularly with the theories of geometry formulated by the
Greek mathematician Pythagoras. With Pythagorean mathematical
theory in hand, medieval architects, artists, and composers
imposed numbers upon everything from cathedrals to canvas to
courtly music. As a cathedral was seen as "frozen geometry,"
music was thought of as "sounding geometry."
Much of the ensemble's music employs a complex rhythm called
ars subtilior or "highly refined style." This subtle, intricate,
and highly syncopated rhythmical style is meant to keep the
listener's ear constantly interested while at the same time
deceiving its expectations.
It does sound like geometry, but a multi-layered geometry
constantly on the move changing its angles and shapes. Yet as
precise and mathematical as this music is, it is anything but
stiff or boring.
Mechtild Manus of the Goethe Institut describes the music as
"soothing and harmonious, but also strange, it's so far from us
today." Manus adds that this occasionally haunting music is not
so distant, however, that we cannot grasp it and appreciate it
now.
The delicate play of the string, flute, and other instruments
evoke images in the mind that would send even the most
unimaginative listener to the echoing banquet hall of a feudal
lord of a secluded clearing in a wood where secret lovers meet.
In fact, it is not surprising that many of the songs included
in the program are love songs. This music comes from a time when
chivalry and courtly love between knights and ladies was the
subject of many a romantic tale.
Famous figures such as Lancelot from the Arthurian legends
endured trials of both strength and character for a kiss or even
just a glimpse of his love, usually someone else's wife.
These love songs are marked by earnestness, such as these
English and German lyrics:
"So is imprinted in my remembrance, your womanhood, your
youth, your gracefulness, your manner, your smile, your prized
beauty, your kindness, that... wake I, sleep I, or what thing I
do, my heart is with you go wherever you may go."
"Once, we two gazed upon the shining morning star. Can we not
always be together? Alas, this can never be."
The music and lyrics which will be performed during the
concert come from texts found all cross Medieval Europe,
including what is now France, England, Spain, Italy and Germany.
The Ferrara Ensemble is the resident ensemble at the Schola
Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland, a music school which since the
1930s has produced top-quality early music performers in the
fields of medieval, Renaissance, Baroque and classical music.
Since many of the music manuscripts do not survive in their
entirety, the Schola Cantorum Basel (Basel School of Music) has
had to carefully research many musical texts and the period
instruments in order to reconstruct the songs.
The six-member group is currently on a tour of Southeast Asia.
Other stops on the tour include Manila and Tokyo. They will be
performing in Bandung on March 25.
The ensemble consists of instrumentalists Crawford Young
(flute), Karl-Heinz Schickhaus (hammer dulcimer) and Randall Cook
(viola d'arco) and vocalists Lena Susanne Norin (alto), John
Fleage (tenor) and Stephen Grant (baritone).