DÚÓ - Blondel
Emily Baines, blokkflauta, sekjapípur Belinda Paul, blokkflauta, shawm
Of All the Birds
~ Prógram ~
Recorder, Bagpipes
Gace Brulé c.1160–after 1213 A la doucour de la bele seson
Biaus m’est estez
Le Chastelain de Couci 12th century Li noveax temp
Recorders
Blondel de Nesles c. 1155–1202 A l’entrant d’esté
Maestro Piero before 1300–after 1350. Si com’al canto
Oswald von Wolkenstein 1376/1377–1445 Der mai mit lieber zal
Shawms
Anonymous (Rossi Codex) Quando i oselli canta
Dal bel castel
Borlet (Chantilly Codex) He, tres doulz roussignol
Anonymous (Faenza Codex) Or sus vous dormez trop
Bagpipes
Le Chastelain de Couci 12th century Quant li rossignoz joliz
Anonymous, text Raimbault de Vacqueiras c.1150 – 1207 Kalenda Maya
Hear us, you who are no more than leaves always falling, you mortals benighted by nature, You enfeebled and powerless creatures of earth always haunting a world of mere shadows, Entities without wings, insubstantial as dreams, you ephemeral things, you human beings: Turn your minds to our words, our ethereal words, for the words of the birds last forever!
Aristophanes The Birds 414 BC
Aristophanes play The Birds won second prize in the Dionysia of 414 BC. The winning entry is now barely a shadow of a memory—and yet the aerial walled city of Cloud Cuckoo Land, a bird-filled fantasy double of ancient Athens in which every foible of Athenian society is replicated by the fledgling upstarts, is wedged into our cultural consciousness. The enduring appeal of Aristophanes’s play shouldn’t surprise us. Birds have infiltrated many of our myths and fables, they have wormed their way into our poetry, philosophy, music, dance and religion; the phoenix perpetually rises from the ashes of its predecessor, Ovid’s wronged women metamorphose into a swallow and a nightingale, biblical souls soar heavenward in the form of a sparrow,* and the Quran tells of clay birds receiving the breath of life from the Prophet Jesus. Tennyson’s Eagle is a majestic, terrifying agent of fate, Shelley’s skylark a disembodied drift of song, and John McCrae’s birds still sing, oblivious to the battlefield below, and unheard by human ears. And, at least in terms of sheer numbers, this anonymous medieval poem outdoes them all, indulging in an aviary of similes to catalogue the virtues of an unattainable lady.
He is papeiai in pyn that beteth me my bale; She is the parrot for my pain, to heal my suffering;
To trewe tortle in a tour y telle the mi tale; True turtle-dove in a tower, my story I shall sing;
He is thrustle thryuen in thro that singeth in sale, A thrush, champion of debate, chanting in a hall,
The wilde laueroc ant wolc ant the wodewale; Joining in every song most joyfully of all
He is faucoun in friht, dernest in dale, A lark, a hawk, a wood-bird singing in the vale,
Ant with eueruch a gome gladest in gale. A falcon in the forest, hidden deep in the dale.
From Weye he is wisist into Wyrhale; From the Wye to the Wirral she is wisest without fail;
Hire nome is in a note of the nyhtegale. Her name is hidden in a note of the nightingale.
In Annote is hire nome; nempneth hit non? Her name is in "Annote" to be reflected on;
Who-se ryht redeth roune to Iohon. Whoever works it out, whisper it to John.
While philosophers and musical theorists were occupied with weighty considerations such as whether the song of the nightingale was in fact music (the general conclusion was no—it was the joyous but artless work of an avian idiot-savant), medieval musicians were busy lavishing their works with musical representations of birdsong. The imitation of birds provided the perfect hook off which to hang dazzling feats of vocal and compositional virtuosity, and the ideal backdrop for a profession of courtly love, or thoughts of spring. It would be easy to dismiss this superficially frivolous repertoire as light-hearted froth, but its scope and ambition reaches far beyond its popular charm. It is visionary and experimental, rhythmically far in advance of the capabilities of conventional musical notation, and thematically it encompasses a microcosm of human experience. The often highly stylised texts are built around a shorthand of symbolic associations. The nightingale represented both life and death, love and rejection, an ambivalent bird whose complicated, seductive call “oci-oci” blithely orders “kill, kill”. The lark was the messenger of spring, and the cuckoo signalled deception and betrayal, its song universally damned as tedious, repetitious, unchanging and dull. Birds of prey were associated with chivalry, honour, command and power, and the raven with death. Treachery and deceit, noble love and shameless infidelity, rejection, loss, death, resurrection and hope; from graceless thought to chivalrous deed—you will find it all in a song about a bird. The birds are the opposite to Time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant songs.
Olivier Messiaen
The Abyss of the Birds (Quartet for the End of Time)
© B Paul 2018
* Oure soule, as a sparowe, is delyuered; fro the snare of hunters. The snare is al to-brokun; and we ben delyuered Psalm 124:7 (Wyclif Bible 1397)
About Blondel ensemble:
Blondel is a Medieval and Renaissance wind band made up of Belinda Paul, Emily Baines and Lizzie Gutteridge. Like the virtuosic wind players of the Middle Ages, we enjoy pushing the limits of our technique, performing music that many might not expect to hear on loud wind instruments, without losing the subtleties of phrasing, mood and balance of the original. Blondel play shawms, recorders, bagpipes and other early wind instruments. Our past performances include concerts in the Cheltenham Festival (broadcast live by the BBC) Cambridge Early Music, Brighton Early Music Festival, King’s Lynn Festival, Medieval Music in the Dales, Beaminster Festival, Leeds International Medieval Congress, the Wimbledon International Music Festival, Totnes Early Music Society, Barnes Music Festival, Worcester Early Music Festival, and Colchester Early Music. We have done work, both individually and as a group, for Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. In 2020 we received an unsolicited grant from NEMA in support of early music performers during the covid crisis. We were commissioned by the Agincourt600 Committee to create a work to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the battle of Agincourt—Owre Kynge Went Forth - Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt - told in words and music. The project included a gala performance, and a recording, which is available as a free download from Bandcamp This project is partly funded by the Continuo Foundation. A further grant from Angel Early Music will enable to record this programme later this year.