History with an H

I'm always on the lookout for musical events wherever I venture to, and this was a doozy.  I've heard historically aware concerts with various techniques and instruments but this spanned a millennium of European music, with a string of firsts highlighted and a cupboard full of instruments, including some I'd never heard of.  The gig was called Music of the middle Ages 400 to 1500; the performing ensemble was the Magpie consort, presented by the 60-yo Mount Lofty Music Club in the venerable stone of Norton Summit and the very apt St John's Anglican Church; the costumes and instruments were expected and even an Aussie Magpie puppet was welcome.  There was considerable work in development of this program, so we heard post-Hopy Roman Empire C5th Armenian music, through Byzantium, past Gregorian chant, from single part melodies to two-parts (~900CE), three (~1,200CE) and four-parts (~1,400CE), demonstrated in song and instruments, a borrowed hurdy gurdy plus rebec, crumhorn and cornemuse, psaltery, kantele and more common harp, recorders, oud, finger cymbals and percussion, early bagpipes, perhaps more?  And of course, voice, presumably the source of all this, three female, one male, variously combined and in those particularly styles, obvious especially in the earliest days of simple melody and drones then developing to the complexity of parts and harmony and even parts with different words.  There must have been huge work in development of such a program, finding some of the earliest surviving written music (Mesrop Mashrops 362-440), the earliest known surviving music of a female composer (St Kassia 810?-85?), early English, the famed polymath Hildegard von Bingen, the Crusades, France and early polyphony (Perotin), the Camino to Santiago de Compostella and Cantigas de santa Maria, Richard the Lionheart, a female troubadour Beatrice Comtesa di Dia, then interval and another half.  Too much to write.  All done with awareness of the eras, I guess as far as we so far know, good voices and apt, often fairly simple instrumentation.  I particularly loved the voices, perhaps male singing an instrumental-like low part and those female voices soaring, especially one soprano of note.  The Magpies have performed at festivals in Europe and plan to tour again soon enough.  I can understand given their commitment and research and performance and clear love for the eras.  A history lesson as much as a pleasure, as both it was.

Magpie Consort comprised (from left in the pics) Kenneth Pope, Anna Pope, Emma Horwood and Eleanor Pope.  MC performed at St John's Anglican Church in Norton Summit for the Mount Lofty Music Club.