programme no. 1
The secrets of number
The use of cantus firmi is one of the most popular composition techniques in the
Renaissance period. Widely known pre-existing melodies – either popular songs,
plainchants from liturgy or sometimes just abstract hexachord patterns – build the base to
form a new composition in an augmented form (cantus firmus). The other voices form a
playful and creative counterpoint around it.
A very fascinating form of this can be found in the Royal Manuscript 24.d.2, better known
as Baldwine Manuscript. Some pieces, which will be presented in our program, display an
unusual number of proportion symbols – numbers and mensural signs – which determine
the speed relation of the voices to each other, often resulting in complex proportions. Since
the Middle Ages, Music as one of the septem artes liberales relied largely on the relation of
numbers and their relation within the musical context.The challenge posed by the rhythmic
intricacies of those pieces remains as attractive to musicians today as it apparently was in
Baldwine’s circles. Whether composed for didactic purposes or stemming from the
fascination with the speculative combination of differently measured voices, the pieces can
be seen as a late echo of the trend toward the „mystical-mathematical“
programme no. 2
fe:male
It is now well known that the female voice has been suppressed in the past. For a
long time, women were not allowed to publish music, take part in public music life
and their voices could only be heard within the walls of the monasteries.
Nonetheless, there is to be assumed that female musicians did not fall short of
their male counterparts in terms of virtuosity.
Beginning with one of the most famous medieval woman, Hildegard von Bingen to
the first ever female composer to publish music, Maddalena Casulana, we are
searching for traces of female musical activity throughout the age of the
Renaissance. Additionally, pieces written by men, which are directed to an
idealized and unreachable form of woman, appear to be a huge part of the
Renaissance repertoire. Together with music tailored to our Renaissance consort
by the contemporary female composer Arevik Beglaryan, reflecting these past
tendencies, they eventually form our program fe:male.