Praetorius Michael

The scandalous la volta: “such a lewd and unchaste dance”

Ian Pittaway Anatomie of Abuses, Arbeau Thoinot, crumhorn, dance, Dowland John, Elizabeth I, guitar, lavolta, Orchésographie, Orchesography, Praetorius Michael, Puritans, Queen Elizabeth I, renaissance dance, Stubbes Philip, Tabourot Jehan, volt, volta, volte 0 Comment

La volta (or volte or volt or, in England, lavolta) was reputedly the favourite dance of Queen Elizabeth I, performed by couples with much leaping, lifting and turning. The dance, a variation of the galliard, was considered scandalous by the moralists of the day. Just as today we hear talk of ‘gateway drugs’ leading to harder and more destructive substances, la volta was considered a ‘gateway dance’, leading to more destructive vices. This article describes the key point of the choreography, discusses the moral opprobium it attracted, and weighs up the evidence for the Queen dancing this “lewd and unchaste dance”.

We begin with a performance of two voltas by The Night Watch.

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Nails, needles, chains and angels: the pain and joy of ‘In dulci jubilo’

Ian Pittaway Bach Johann Sebastian, Buxtehude Dieterich, Good Christian men rejoice, Holst Gustav, In dulci jubilo, Liszt Franz, Now sing we now rejoice, Oldfield Mike, Piae Cantiones Ecclesiasticae, Praetorius Michael, Seuse Heinrich, Seuse Henry, Suso Heinrich, Suso Henry 2 Comments
Woodcut self-portrait by Heinrich Suso (Inkunabel K. 7, Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg), c. 1365.

In dulci jubilo is one of the most recognisable and joyful melodies of the middle ages, but it carries one of the most shocking and astonishing stories. The song is first mentioned in 1328, sung and danced by an angel in a vision of Heinrich Suso, German Christian mystic of the 14th century, extreme practitioner of Christian self-mortification.

This article tells Heinrich Suso’s disturbed and disturbing life, and the continuing life of In dulci jubilo, its words repeatedly reworked over the centuries, from the original Latin and German into many vernacular languages, and its music transformed with new musical arrangements from the 14th to the 21st century.

We begin with a performance on medieval harp.

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Wired for sound: the bandora and orpharion

Ian Pittaway bandora, Barley William, basso continuo, broken consort, cittern, consort, continuo, Cutting Francis, Dowland John, English consort, English theorbo, Ferrabosco Alfonso, Holborne Anthony, Johnson John, lute, Meuler Jobst, Meuler's wire, mixed consort, orpharion, Palmer Francis, penorcon, Playford John, poliphant, poliphon, poliphone, polyphant, Praetorius Michael, Robinson Thomas, Rose John, Talbot James, theorbo, Tieffenbrucker Wendelin, Tielke Joachim 2 Comments

In the early music revival, many renaissance and baroque instruments have received their due recognition: the lute in its various forms, the viol family, early violins, recorders, guitars and keyboards, for example. Less familiar and less played are two related instruments, the bandora and orpharion. Both were strung with wire and plucked, they shared the same scalloped shape and fanned frets, and both were particularly popular in England. The deep pitch of the larger bandora made it eminently suitable as the plucked bass of the mixed consort, while the orpharion shared the tuning and repertoire of the renaissance lute and was considered an interchangeable alternative.

This article gives a brief history of both instruments, with indications of their respective repertoires, the descriptive testimonies of contemporaneous writers, some lost related instruments, and videos of both the bandora and orpharion being played.

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The bray harp: getting a buzz from early music

Ian Pittaway arpichordium, baroque, begena, bèguèna, bray harp, Chaucer Geoffrey, Davidsharffe, early instruments, early music, Gothic harp, harp, harpichordium, hurdy gurdy, Lamento di Tristano, lyre, mediaeval, medieval, muselar, Praetorius Michael, renaissance, Robert ap Huw manuscript, rota, rote, rothe, rotta, Ur lyres, vielle à roue 16 Comments
A donkey plays bray harp while a goat sings, from the Hunterian or York Psalter, 1170.
Donkey harpist, goat singer: Hunterian/York Psalter.

The bray harp is not a sound modern ears are used to, and even most early music groups with harps don’t use the period instrument, yet it was the standard European harp of the late medieval, renaissance and early baroque periods, from the 15th century to the 1630s, and still used until the late 18th century in some places. The bray harp gets its name from the L shaped wooden pins at the base of the strings, positioned so the strings buzz against them as they vibrate: the effect was said to sound like a donkey’s bray. It’s an older idea than the bray harp, one shared by the oldest surviving stringed instruments, made four and a half thousand years ago.

This article traces the earliest evidence for the European harp, leading to the origins and popular rise of the bray harp specifically. We ask why there is so little surviving early harp music and try to come to a feasible historical answer; and along the way take in Pictish stones, illuminated Psalters, Geoffrey Chaucer, harp-playing angels and an ape playing a rota, with a video of the harp being brayed.

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