Polyphony at the Court of Henry VIII
Alan Thrasher, director
Vanamali Medina, direcor's assistant 12 March, 2011
Our workshop on March 12 will be organized in four sessions: the first
and second to perform instrumental pieces by Compere, Isaac and other
Franco-Flemish composers which are known to have been played in
Henry's court - and to some of which Henry attached his own name. The
third session will focus upon early 16th-century performance practice,
including brief exposure in reading white mensural notation, several
types of ornamentation based upon Ganassi, Ortiz and others, and
problems of musica ficta as they occur. Two lovely pieces by Josquin
will serve as examples. Finally, in the fourth session, I plan to
return to the Glogauer Liederbuch with some challenging German pieces
of roughly the same period, finishing with two Gervaise dance tunes.
The smaller group (repertoire still under discussion) would be invited
to join us at the end to perform one piece (to be announced),
Source materials:
Odhecaton A and C (Hewitt, Fallows and facsimile editions)
Henry VIII Music Book (Stevens edition in Musica Britannica))
Glogauer Liederbuch
Livres de Danceries (Gervaise)
The Directors:
Alan Thrasher is Professor Emeritus, Ethnomusicology at UBC.
Vanamali Medina is working on an MMus in flute at UBC and is an experienced recorder player.
and second to perform instrumental pieces by Compere, Isaac and other
Franco-Flemish composers which are known to have been played in
Henry's court - and to some of which Henry attached his own name. The
third session will focus upon early 16th-century performance practice,
including brief exposure in reading white mensural notation, several
types of ornamentation based upon Ganassi, Ortiz and others, and
problems of musica ficta as they occur. Two lovely pieces by Josquin
will serve as examples. Finally, in the fourth session, I plan to
return to the Glogauer Liederbuch with some challenging German pieces
of roughly the same period, finishing with two Gervaise dance tunes.
The smaller group (repertoire still under discussion) would be invited
to join us at the end to perform one piece (to be announced),
Source materials:
Odhecaton A and C (Hewitt, Fallows and facsimile editions)
Henry VIII Music Book (Stevens edition in Musica Britannica))
Glogauer Liederbuch
Livres de Danceries (Gervaise)
The Directors:
Alan Thrasher is Professor Emeritus, Ethnomusicology at UBC.
Vanamali Medina is working on an MMus in flute at UBC and is an experienced recorder player.
