Masques and Theatre Music
While the rambunctious rabble who attended Shakespeare’s Globe as the groundlings are well known, it should come as no surprise that the more elite audience who could afford performances at the indoor Blackfriars Theatre were treated to the deployment of subtle musical effects and allusions and dances imported from the fabulous (and fabulously expensive) Court Masque entertainments. In this series of interviews with leading scholars of the theatre, masque, music and dance, we investigate the changes in theatre music in Shakespeare’s lifetime and beyond and hear music from plays performed by the MIO Violin Band: Matt Antal, Brandon Chui, Sheila Smyth, violas, Laura Jones, bass violin, John Edwards, lute, led by Christopher Verrette, violin, and Felix Deak, viola da gamba.
Christopher Verrette, violin, plays divisions by Davis Mell on John Come Kiss Me Now and anonymous divisions on Johnny Cock Thy Beaver from Playford's The Division Violin accompanied by The Musicians In Ordinary Renaissance Violin Band: Matt Antal, Brandon Chui, Sheila Smyth, violas, Laura Jones, bass violin and John Edwards, lute.
Deanne Williams and John Edwards discuss John Milton's Comus, The Lady, Alice Egerton, her experience and her exemplars as a performer.
The Musicians In Ordinary Renaissance Violin Band plays Antiq Masque by John Coprario, and the Robert Johnson's First Witches' Dance and Second Witches Dance from The Masque of Queens by Ben Jonson, probably revived in Middleton's The Witch and Shakespeare's Macbeth. The MIO Violin Band is Matt Antal, Brandon Chui, Sheila Smyth, violas, Laura Jones, bass violin, John Edwards, lute, led by Christopher Verrette, violin.
Dr. Natalia Khomenko, Lecturer at York Univ. and VK Preston, Asst. Prof. at Univ. of Toronto’s Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies, talk about depictions of witches in 16th and 17th century England and France.
The Musicians In Ordinary Renaissance Violin Band plays The King of Denmark's Galliard from John Dowland's Lachrimae or Seven Tears, The Fairy Round from Anthony Holborne's Pavans, Galliards etc., Sir Henry Umpton's Funeral (Dowland) and Paradizo, or The Countess of Pembroke's Paradise (Holborne). Special guest Felix Deak, (viola da gamba) plays Deth by Tobias Hume. The MIO Violin Band is Matt Antal, Brandon Chui, Sheila Smyth, violas, Laura Jones, bass violin, John Edwards, lute, led by Christopher Verrette, violin.
Prof. Tom Bishop (Univ. of Auckland) talks about Shakespeare’s Pericles. Prof. Linda Austern (Northwestern U.) talks about music and medicine in the 17th century.
The Musicians In Ordinary Renaissance String Band, (Matt Antal, Brandon Chui and Sheila Smyth, violas, Laura Jones, bass violin, John Edwards, lute, led by Christopher Verrette, violin) plays John Coprario's dances from The Lord's Masque in versions published in 1617 by William Brade, The Tempest from Squires’ Masque and The Haymakers' Dance (both anon.) with viola parts by Christopher Verrette after Brade), and The Nymphs' Dance from Masque of the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn (Coprario/Brade).
Stephen Orgel, Professor Emeritus at Stanford Univ. talks to John Edwards about the Stuart court masque, its performers, its expressions of power and the meaning of the masque conjured by the triumphant Prospero in The Tempest.