Early and Period Music

Mooredale and More

Mooredale Concerts, under artistic director Anton Kuerti, is second to none in bringing artists of the highest standard from Canada and beyond to its main concert series. As well, it’s a nurturing force for young musicians through its Mooredale Youth Orchestras and Music and Truffles concerts. The next programme well illustrates the series’ various facets: on March 7, Mooredale will bring Les Violons du Roy to town.

page 13_Violons du Roy - photo by LucDelisle Now in its 25th-anniversary season, this chamber orchestra was founded by music director Bernard Labadie and is based in Quebec City. Through its many concerts, broadcasts, recordings and much touring the orchestra has developed an international reputation for the energy and vitality of its performances. Its repertoire is wide ranging – from baroque to present day – and always performed in the stylistic manner most appropriate to each era. When playing music from the baroque and classical periods, the musicians use modern instruments, but also copies of period bows to conform with the performance practice of the era.

Their March 7 concerts are dedicated to the vibrant string concertos of Vivaldi. You’ll hear why this group is so renowned: each of its members is a soloist in his or her own right, and almost all of them will be featured as such in these concerts.

Yes, I do mean the plural – “concerts.” A unique and charming feature of Mooredale Concerts is Music and Truffles: a one-hour, interactive version of the 3:15pm concert, taking place at 1:15pm and designed for children. But you don’t have to be a child to attend; all you need is the curiosity to learn more about the great music and artists being presented that day.

Please note, too, that there’s yet another chance to hear Les Violons du Roy in the southern Ontario area this month, as they’ll be presenting the same programme in London on March 6. You’ll find the details in our Beyond GTA listings.

… and more!

It’s hard to know how to continue describing the early music scene this month, as March is turning out to be such a treasure trove of riches. Some of this has to do with the approaching Christian holy days of Easter weekend, which have inspired an enormous wealth of musical creativity throughout the ages. You’ll discover music (most often involving voices) that is not heard at any other time of year. Several other concerts this month have to do with Bach, as his devotees have a penchant for celebrating his birthday (March 21) by performing his music.

Here are some concerts you might not want to miss:

The music of the early German Baroque is replete with magnificent sacred works for massed forces of voices and instruments. The Toronto Consort presents heartfelt works of anguish and redemption from this era in their programme “From Praetorius to Bach: Visions of Darkness and Light.” You will revel in the sounds of a large ensemble of rarely heard instruments including sackbuts and cornetti, as well as singers (even in works for double choir), strings, lutes and keyboards, in music by Praetorius, Schütz, Schein, Bach and others.

The Tallis Choir with its conductor Peter Mahon take us to the Royal Convent of Madrid during Holy Week, 1611, to hear some of the most glorious polyphonic music ever written for voices. Tomás Luis de Victoria’s “Tenebrae for Good Friday” is from a magnificent collection of music he wrote for this portion of the Christian liturgical year – choral music of unparalleled dramatic expressiveness. It will be performed in the enveloping acoustical setting of St. Patrick’s Church.

If you seek drama as well as poignant music in the re-telling of the Easter story, there’s no better place to find them than in Bach’s St. John Passion. Chorus Niagara with conductor Robert Cooper presents this trenchant work twice, in Grimsby and in St. Catharines.

Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir present Bach in Leipzig, an imaginative journey to 18th-century Leipzig where Bach lived and worked from 1723 till his death. This is the latest of several acclaimed presentations designed by Tafelmusik’s own Alison Mackay, and one that is sure to bring to life a colourful array of characters and a vigorous community, as well as highlighting the variety and breadth of the music Bach composed during his long tenure in that city.

Toronto Early Music Centre’s Musically Speaking presentation is entitled “The Grand Tour.” This tradition Flourished in the 1660s as the customary English gentleman’s post-Oxbridge cultural education, serving as a rite of passage. You’ll hear music that such a traveller might have heard during Purcell’s lifetime, taking the Grand Tour from England through France to Italy.

In Port Dover, Arcady and its artistic director Ronald Beckett present “A Baroque Miscellany,” with works by Bach, Sammartini, Handel, Corelli, Telemann and Beckett played on violin, recorder and keyboard.

Aradia Ensemble presents “The English Orpheus.” In Greek mythology, the god Orpheus is credited with being the inspiration for literature, poetry, drama and music. Who might be his counterpart in later times but Purcell, who set poetry to music so brilliantly and wrote so much wonderful incidental music to plays? Aradia Ensemble under its artistic director Kevin Mallon explores some of this, presenting the original text alongside the music for plays such as Don Quixote (with excerpts from Thomas D’ Urfey’s play) and for Bonduca, or The British Heroine (with excerpts from John Fletcher’s play).

An enchantress she is, and a passionate explorer of all kinds of repertoire. In Tafelmusik’s programme entitled “Enchantress,” soprano Karina Gauvin displays her lovely virtuosity in music by Vivaldi and Handel; the orchestra does the same in complementary pieces by Vivaldi and Locatelli.

If you go to Kingston you can have a crash course in baroque music everyone should know, as the Kingston Symphony Orchestra presents “Classics 101.” You’ll hear such beloved pieces as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Handel’s Water Music Suite, Pachelbel’s Canon and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3. Gisèle Dalbec, the orchestra’s concertmaster, is the featured soloist.

Buxtehude’s Passion oratorio Membra Jesu Nostri is an amazingly daring outpouring of grief, seven cantatas each based on a medieval hymn, that meditate on the feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart and face of the crucified Christ. Scored generally for five soloists, choir, two solo violins and continuo, the emotion is softened by the appearance of a quintet of viols in the sixth cantata, “To His Heart.” Composed for Passion Week of 1680, it will be presented by the Toronto Chamber Choir with its conductor Mark Vuorinen.

If you go to Kitchener you can hear Bach’s monumental B Minor Mass, performed by the Grand Philharmonic Choir and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony – a performance especially notable as it will be one of the last conducted by the Choir’s director of 38 seasons, Howard Dyck. The featured soloists are an impressive quartet of Canadians: soprano Suzie Leblanc, mezzo Laura Pudwell, tenor Michael Schade and baritone Russell Braun.

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities, who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at: earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

God, Bach and More Bach

“First there’s God; then there’s Bach; then there’s the rest of us,” was the credo of a friend of mine. Obviously a lot of people tend to agree about Bach’s supremacy in the artistic scheme of things, evident from the number of performances – even an entire concert – devoted to his chamber works this month. Bach’s creative genius is given a wide overview, as many of the pieces presented date from the early years of his career; and one, The Musical Offering, dates from three years before his death.

The Academy Concert Series

The Academy Concert Series has maintained a quiet presence in the east end of the city, yet there’s something very passionate about their presentations: an obvious devotion to presenting music in a historically-informed style with enthusiasm and integrity. Artistic director Nicolai Tarasov tells of the genesis of the series, “The beginning of the 1990s was still very much a continuation of the major discoveries and achievements in the field of “historically presented” music of the 80s. We (meaning Tarasov, a performer on several wind instruments, and founders baroque cellist/gambist Sergei Istomin and harpsichordist Viviana Sofronitsky) had our vision of how this music should sound, and wanted to share it with the audience.” Now, after almost two decades – 2010 /11 will be their 20th anniversary season – the series has broadened to include music from the early period to contemporary.

P11 Their February concert, “Bach and the King,” consists entirely of one masterpiece: Bach’s Musical Offering. It was 1747 when King Frederick of Prussia gave “old Bach” that cryptic theme on which to extemporize a fugue; Bach subsequently took it home and developed it into an ingenious, multi-interpretable series of 12 canons and fugues, and one trio sonata, all displaying an incredible mastery of the art of counterpoint. There are mirror and crab canons, a never-ending canon, an instruction to “Seek and ye shall find!” – for Bach slyly set down some of the music as puzzles for the musicians to solve.

Tarasov sets the stage: “The very nature of the work offers a multiplicity of possible solutions. The open-endedness of the composer’s intentions invites players to enter into the spirit of the game and try different things. Venturing some distance down this path, we are offering a number of new realizations of Bach’s canons, as well as a new order of the parts for better balance of the whole programme, and an entirely new instrumentation. It will be an evening of musical discoveries and delights!”

This is a wonderful and rare opportunity to hear what, in Tarasov’s words, is “a unique phenomenon in music. The symmetry and proportion, the emotional intensity and balance it exhibits are matchless even for Bach. In it is held the unfathomable and mysterious musical world, which reaches far and wide into the metaphysical Beyond, similar to The Art of the Fugue or to the last string quartets of Beethoven.”

In addition to Nicolai Tarasov, who plays baroque oboe and recorder, you’ll hear Rona Goldensher, baroque violin; Laura Jones, viola da gamba; and Paul Jenkins, harpsichord. The concert takes place on February 13 at Eastminster United Church.

More Bach

Several upcoming concerts involve music from Bach’s younger years, for solo stringed instruments with or without keyboard accompaniment. The suites for solo cello, the sonatas for violin and harpsichord, and the sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard are all represented:

On February 6, if you travel to Norval, near Georgetown, you’ll have a chance to hear the joyful G major suite for solo cello played by cellist Mary-Katherine Finch, as part of the Georgetown Bach Chorale’s “Cathedral Compositions” concert – a programme which also includes choral works such as Allegri’s Miserere and Lotti’s Crucifixus.

You have two chances to hear the grave and beautiful Cello Suite in D Minor (it contains my favourite of the sarabandes for solo cello). On February 7, in the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Mazzoleni Hall, it will be played not on cello but on double bass by the Toronto Symphony’s principal bassist, Jeffrey Beecher (a concert which also includes modern works for bass). On February 14, cellist Nathan Whittaker will perform it in the Toronto Early Music Centre’s “Musically Speaking” series (which also features soprano Linda Tsatsanis singing delicious love songs of the 17th century).

Bach’s sonatas for violin and harpsichord pour forth movement after movement of exquisitely expressive music. On February 7 in Kitchener, Folia presents the second in a pair of concerts, entitled “Bach Sonatas in the Afternoon, Part 2.” Violinist Linda Melsted and harpsichordist Borys Medicky will perform.

And on February 13, Scaramella’s “A Bach Extravaganza” features artistic director Joëlle Morton and harpsichordist Sara-Anne Churchill in a performance of all three of Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord – a programme special not only for Bach’s music but because two Canadian works will also be featured, and because the instrument showcased is the 1699 Joachim Tielke bass viol owned by Hart House.

More Concerts

Okay, it’s true that concerts featuring Bach are not the only interesting happenings on the early music scene this month. Some of the others you’ll find in the listings are:

The Cardinal Consort of Viols present Love & Regretz, as part of Christ Church Deer Park’s Lunchtime Chamber Music Series.

Human weakness and the iniquities of the powerful are explored in Sine Nomine’s Vanitas et corruptio, a programme of medieval songs of parody and satire.

Nota Bene Period Orchestra teams up with La Belle Danse baroque dance company to present Baroque Dance: Courtesans from Versailles. The concert takes place on Feb. 28 in Kitchener; there is also an open dress rehearsal on Feb. 27 in Toronto.

The Windermere String Quartet, whose mandate is to explore the well-known masterworks as well as lesser-known gems of the string quartet repertoire on period instruments, presents a programme of Mozart, Haydn and Georges Onslow quartets.

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities, who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at: earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

Sacred and Profane

Sine Nomine

Medieval music – going back from about 1500 to as far as can be reliably discerned – is often regarded as too remote and strange for 21st-century ears. But go to a concert of Sine Nomine Ensemble for Medieval Music and you’ll discover how exciting, multi-faceted and colourful this music is: rich with myriad forms, rhythms and expressions of life both sacred and secular.

The musicians who form the core of this ensemble – Andrea Budgey, Randall Rosenfeld, Janice Kerkkamp and Bryan Martin – are scholars, whose extensive research into the cultures and practices of medieval times have led to international recognition. Sine Nomine has also long been the ensemble in residence at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (the institute for advanced studies in medieval history and culture) in Toronto.

In their concert series, the group strives to bring to life the discoveries of their research, to present vividly a particular facet of medieval culture. Music is interspersed with readings from the day. You’ll undoubtedly hear improvisation (always based on the practices of the time), and you might well hear the vielle, rebec and gittern, as well as voices, harp, lute and flute. Always informed but never pretentious, their intention is to “create performances which are intelligible and enjoyable to modern audiences, and which would not be wholly foreign to medieval listeners” (to quote the jacket of their CD A Golden Treasury of Medieval Music).

For their first concert of the season, the setting is North-Western Europe in the 13th to the 15th centuries. As suggested by the title, Missus est angelus Gabriel – Medieval music for the Annunciation and Nativity, the music and readings will illuminate the season of advent, the period of anticipation and preparation for Christmas.

The concert takes place on December 18 at Saint Thomas’s Church. If you go, you’ll be hearing a very special presence in the artistic community.

I FURIOSI

Of quite different mettle (but in a way not dissimilar in that they are not afraid to let “slices of life” come through in their presentations) is I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble. Its superb musicians – soprano Gabrielle McLaughlin, violinists Julia Wedman and Aisslinn Nosky, and cellist/gambist Felix Deak – began this concert series eleven years ago, as Gabrielle McLaughlin tells me, to have an outlet for their own ideas. “We had lots of unique ideas that we wanted to explore,” she says. “The artistic freedom is quite refreshing.”

The concept has led them to some mighty unusual programme themes, which, as Gabrielle explains, “come up all the time as we live our lives; it’s just a matter of looking out for them. It usually happens that someone will think of something because of their situation, and that person will text-message all the rest of us. It looks something like this: ‘Next season we have to do a garbage strike theme!’ And the responses look like this: ‘Ummm...what on earth would we play?’ or ‘Yes! I have four different operas about garbage strikes and we all know that Handel was an unemployed garbage collector!’ Then we have a meeting before putting out the dates for the following year, in which we decide which of the many nutty ideas of the last year will work best.“

But don’t imagine that the music presented is less than wonderful, or tossed off without the greatest of artistic care: these four musicians remain true to their art and you’ll hear some ravishing music-making presented with high spirits and a lot of imagination.

So do go to hear their next performance: I F’s New BFF – a play on Paris Hilton’s television show Paris Hilton’s New BFF – which is a concert “about friendship and its importance, with maybe a little bit of reality show thrown in.” Guests are two other fine violinists: Patricia Ahern and Cristina Zacharias. It takes place on January 29 at Calvin Presbyterian Church.

SOME OTHER CONCERTS IN THE NEXT TWO MONTHS

Dec. 11, 8:00 The world-famous Tallis Scholars make their Koerner Hall debut, in a concert of Renaissance polyphony by Josquin, Nesbett, Tallis and Byrd.

Dec. 11 and 12, 8:00 The Toronto Consort presents “A Spanish Christmas,” in a very colourful concert of music from 16th and 17th century Spain and Latin America, with a full range of textures: guitars, percussion, winds, harp, keyboard and voices.

Dec. 12, 7:30 Cantemus Singers conducted by Michael Erdman, and joined by the Community Baroque Orchestra of Toronto ensemble, present “Nowell, Noël” – a delightful programme of seasonal carols and motets, including Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit pour Noël.

Dec. 12, 8:00 Of the many Handel Messiahs abounding, Aradia Ensemble’s “Dublin Messiah” promises to be unique, being a recreation of the ﬁrst performance on April 13th, 1742 in Dublin. For this, Aradia’s director Kevin Mallon has done extensive research into what were the special characteristics of the piece as heard on that day. Soloists are soprano Laura Albino, alto Marion Newman, tenor Nils Brown and bass Sean Watson.

Dec. 13, 8:00 The Bach Consort and Toronto Choral Artists present “Cantatas for Christmas” by J.S. Bach – three cantatas actually, plus the third part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. This wonderful group, founded by TSO bassist Tim Dawson, has at its heart the intention to present Bach’s music in the spirit of giving: the proceeds of its concerts are donated to charity, the performers donating their services to this end. The recipient of this concert’s proceeds is the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund.

Dec. 19, 8:00 The Toronto Chamber Choir presents a joyful and surprising celebration entitled “Medieval Scandinavian Christmas,” featuring Finnish and Swedish music from a collection of late medieval Latin songs, Piae Cantiones (many of which are still beloved carols).

Jan. 1, 2:00 and Jan 2. 8:00 The Musicians in Ordinary plus guests Christopher Verrette, violin, and Sara Anne Churchill, harpsichord, present “A New Year’s Day Concert,” with music of Vivaldi, Conti and others. Last year’s single concert was a huge success, so this year they’ve added a second performance.

Jan. 20, 22 and 23, 8:00 The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony presents “Beloved Bach.” Violinists Linda Melsted and Stephen Sitarski are the soloists in Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor; other music is by Lully, Corelli, Leclair and Rameau.

Virtuosity and Drama

A concert series which has a unique and vivid perspective on the world of early music is Joëlle Morton’s Scaramella, now beginning its fifth season. I’ve been struck by the imaginative eclecticism of this series: each concert offers a totally different fare from the others, with “new” music often mixed with “old,” and a varied group of musicians and instruments on stage – although a common thread running through it all is the voice of the viol.

This is not surprising. Although Joëlle’s initial training and performing were on the modern double bass, she subsequently studied the viol and viol repertoire. “I became hooked,” she explains, “by the sheer beauty of the music, by a vast quantity of previously unexplored repertoire, and by a process of making music that allowed me to make my own decisions about style and interpretation. After a couple of years, I found myself feeling ‘more like myself’ on the viola da gamba, and ‘less like myself’ on the modern double bass.” And she’s now a full-fledged performer on a wide variety of Renaissance and Baroque bowed stringed instruments.

Of the initial impetus for her series, Joëlle tells me: “When I started Scaramella in the fall of 2005, I had in mind the idea of bringing together some good friends with whom I’d worked in various different places, and of collaborating with them to explore how early music could be presented in unusual and stimulating ways, to reach a broader audience. Over the years, I’ve gotten to know a lot of phenomenal musicians, who play all manner of kinds of music, though our ‘common ground’ is historical performance. I wanted to incorporate some of their kinds of music and approaches to ‘expand the boundaries’ of my own knowledge.”

As for the first concert of this season, entitled A Merry Company, the brochure promises it will be “expressive, entertaining and eccentric.” It includes – unlikely as it may seem – excerpts from Handel’s operas (transcribed for small instrumental ensemble during his lifetime), also quirky sonatas by Parcham and Mercy, virtuosic divisions, and the continental influences of Valentine, Matteis and Paisible. “Virtuosic” should also be added to the description of the concert, with the spectacular playing of the musicians involved: Alison Melville (recorders/ baroque flute), Nadina Mackie Jackson (baroque bassoon), Lucas Harris (theorbo), Borys Medicky (harpsichord), and Joëlle Morton herself (violas da gamba).

You can hear it on November 28, 8pm, in the lovely, intimate setting of Victoria College Chapel.

Tafelmusik and Purcell’s King Arthur

2009 has been a particularly fecund year for significant anniversaries in the musical world. The iconic, energetic Tafelmusik seize one last opportunity to honour Purcell in his 350th anniversary year, with concert performances of King Arthur.

A collaboration between Purcell and the playwright/poet John Dryden, the first performances of this “dramatic opera” were in 1691. Much of the drama is spoken, while the music is mostly incidental, intended to colour or comment on the action. You’ll discover Purcell’s unique genius for melody and form at work in the many dances, aires and choruses. Indeed, you’ll find music here to marvel at: I draw your attention to the extraordinary shivering lament of the Cold Genius, wakened unwillingly by Cupid from his icy sleep and longing only to be allowed to “freeze again to death” – an astonishing and endearing piece, even if it evokes images of pending weather.

This tale of a king, his foes and his fair maid, spells cast and battles fought, will be told in spoken word and music by an accomplished band: R.H. Thomson, actor; Suzie Leblanc, soprano; Charles Daniels, tenor; Nathaniel Watson, baritone; with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, directed by Ivars Taurins. Performances take place November 12 to 15.

Of course, as with 2009, every year has its share of anniversaries. A bit of research has revealed that 2010 is replete with significant anniversaries too. Among other things, it is: the 600th anniversary (estimated) of the birth of Ockeghem; the 550th anniversary of the death of Binchois; the 500th anniversary of the births of Diego Ortiz and Andrea Gabrieli; the 350th anniversary of the birth of Alessandro Scarlatti; and the 300th anniversary of the births of W.F. Bach, Pergolesi and Arne. Which of these composers will be celebrated during the coming year? It all remains to be seen …

A few more concerts:

November 7, 3:00 in Hamilton, November 8, 2:00 & 8:00 in Toronto: The new early music chamber ensemble Capella Intima brings glorious sacred music to two churches and to the Heliconian Hall, in their thrice-presented concert Celestial Sirens – Music of the Benedictine Nuns of 17th-century Milan. Performers include Bud Roach, tenor and founder; Dawn Bailey and Erin Bardua, sopranos; Vicki St. Pierre, alto; Sara-Anne Churchill, portative organ; and Kate Haynes, cello.

November 15, 3:00 in Waterloo: Greensleaves (Marilyn Fung, viola da gamba; Shannon Purves-Smith, viols and recorders; and Magdalena Tomsinska, lute) and guest artists present a CD Launch Concert of little-known music of the Polocki manuscript from the mid-17th century, discovered in 1960 in Krakow, Poland. Traditional period pieces (pavanes, galliards, canzonas, etc.) as well as dances and songs with a clearly Polish flavour – at times elegant and touching, at times rustic, boisterous, and humorous – are arranged by Michael Purves-Smith.

November 15, 3:30 in Kitchener: Folia presents Messengers of the Stars: Gods, Goddesses and Galileo. This fascinating programme of music and spoken word looks at the heavens as seen both by the new science of Galileo, and in music and song of his time. You’ll hear music by Caccini, Cavalli, Leonarda and others, performed by Meredith Hall, soprano; Linda Melsted and Julie Baumgartel, baroque violins; Terry McKenna, lutes/baroque guitar; Laura Jones, gamba/ cello; with Tamara Bernstein, host.

November 21, 8:00: Academy Concerts presents Glamour and Grace: French chamber music from the last decade of the Ancien Régime, a programme of refined, elegant and joyful music of Pre-Revolutionary France, presented on 18th-century original instruments and performed by historical performance scholars. Sharon Burlacoff, fortepiano; Nicolai Tarasov, clarinet; Anthony Rapoport, viola; and Robin Howell, bassoon play works by Tapray, Devienne, Dalayrac and Bréval.

November 29, 8:00: Did you know that Toronto has a flourishing Community Baroque Orchestra, founded in 2004? You have a chance to hear them in performance, playing music by Purcell, Buxtehude and Corelli on period instruments, with guests: violinist (and coach) Patricia Ahern and harpsichordist David Sandall.

For full details of these and many other concerts, see our concert listings; you can also search the listings by musical category by clicking here.

Simone Desilets is a long-time contributor to The WholeNote in several capacities, who plays the viola da gamba. She can be contacted at earlymusic@thewholenote.com.

Out of the Ordinary

If you were a court “musician in ordinary” during Tudor and Stuart times, you’d be required to provide music for the Royal Household on any occasion, on call at any time of the day or night. And if you played the lute or sang, your duties would be in the Privy (private) Chambers, as purveyor of the gentler, more intimate music appropriate to this setting.

Toronto’s own Musicians in Ordinary have been inviting audiences into the Privy Chambers of kings and queens for many years now, to listen to the gentle and heartfelt music of John Dowland and others of the 17th and 18th centuries. And core members Hallie Fishel, voice, and John Edwards, lute and guitar, bring a wealth of scholarly activity to their performances. Fishel is in demand as a coach and lecturer on performance-practice and the place of music in early modern culture at universities and colleges across North America; Edwards is a Fellow of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto, and has given lectures and demonstrations throughout North America.

In the first concert of their eighth official season (though they’ve been together as performers for much longer than that), the Musicians in Ordinary explore, in words and music, the many facets of a condition as relevant to commoners as to royalty, and as pervasive in the 21st century as it was in the 17th: melancholy (or depression, as we today might perhaps think of it). Two famous personnages are represented: English composer John Dowland, who expressed deeply felt emotions with exquisite originality in his songs for voice and lute; and Robert Burton, vicar in Oxford and then rector of Seagrave, who published in 1621 the first version of his book The Anatomy of Melancholy.

Apparently both men were subject to bouts of despair. But fortunately, both also had a spectacular sense of humour, and the dark and tragic aspects of melancholy were by no means the only ones they dealt with. The Anatomy abounds in all sorts of unexpected references, from goblins to the geography of America, and is obviously a very entertaining treatise to read. Dowland’s lute songs display a wide range of temperaments and are collectively one of the pinnacles of 17th-century English song. We can fully expect that the Musicians in Ordinary will present a wide-ranging spectrum in their concert.

Fortunately too, Fishel and Edwards have David Klausner as their collaborator in this performance. Klausner, who is a professor in the University of Toronto’s Centre for Medieval Studies and Department of English (and who was one of the original members of the Toronto Consort), will read from The Anatomy of Melancholy. His delivery of the text is described by Edwards as “stentorian.”

The performance takes place on October 10 at 8:00pm in the Heliconian Hall.

Purcell’s Fantasias for Viols

In the autumn of the 350th anniversary of Purcell’s birth, the Toronto Consort presents music he wrote in the spring of his life: the Fantasias for viols. These were almost all composed in the summer of 1680 (some dated precisely); and as far as one can tell, came into being as Purcell’s challenge to himself, to affirm his mastery of what was by then an archaic form. They are masterpieces of contrapuntal writing in the old style, a summing up of what had gone before and was now abandoned in favour of newer styles. This is not music for casual enjoyment. Be prepared to enter an introspective world of rare sonic palate (from three to seven viols), music that will reward you for listening intently to its great beauty.

Les Voix Humaines and friends perform on the beautiful Hart House viols (featured in last month’s column). The concerts take place on October 30 and 31, 8:00pm, at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre.

Some of the many other interesting early music performances this month are:

October 3, 7:00pm: The Elmer Iseler Singers, with guests the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, present what seems like a lovely programme, Gibbons to Gospel, including music by Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons, Whitacre and Tomkins, as well as gospel repertoire.

October 10, 8:00pm: In their own take on melancholia, the ever-daring I Furiosi Baroque Ensemble presents In Corpore Sano with guests, oboist Marco Cera and Jonathan Addleman, harpsichord.

October 15 to 17 at 8pm, October 18 at 3:30: Taflemusik’s Sizzling Strings offers music by Corelli, Vivaldi and C.P.E. Bach, and reaches into the 19th century with music of Mendelssohn. Violinist Aisslinn Nosky is the featured soloist.

October 17, 7:30pm in Barrie: Barrie Concerts presents Baroque Gypsies. Montreal’s Ensemble Caprice perform music from their repertoire, which no doubt will include samples from their 2009 Juno award-winning Vivaldi CD. Their members are shining lights in the early music world: Matthias Maute, recorder, baroque flute and composer;

November 3, 12:10pm: You have a chance to hear samplings of the Toronto Masque Theatre’s work, in U of T’s Voice Performance Class series – a free concert in Walter Hall.

To avoid melancholy one must avoid idleness, states Robert Burton; so grab a friend and heigh yourselves off to some of these concerts, and others that will be presented this month. Full details can be found in The WholeNote’s daily listings sections both in print and online.