The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music: The Madison Early Music Festival will perform familiar and unfamiliar Spanish Renaissance music. What composers and works will be performed? And what makes them different? Part 2 of 2

By Jacob Stockinger

This coming Friday, when the Madison Early Music Festival (MEMF) starts to explore Iberian music during the Renaissance Age of novelist Miguel de Cervantes (below) and his pioneering novel “Don Quixote,” much will be familiar but much will also be new.

To provide a look at what to expect, the longtime co-artistic directors of the festival – wife-and-husband singers Cheryl Bensman Rowe and Paul Rowe (below) – provided the following overview through an email Q&A with The Ear.

All-festival passes are $90 and tickets to individual concerts cost $20, $10 for students.

Click here to buy online, call 608-265-ARTS (2787), or visit the Campus Arts Ticket Box Offices in Memorial Union or Vilas Hall (click here for hours).

(Note: All MEMF Concert Series concerts and lectures are free for participants in the MEMF Workshop. There is a $4 transaction fee per ticket when purchasing online or by phone.)

How does early Spanish music differ from its counterparts in, say, Italy, France, Germany and England. What is the historical origin and importance of the music from that era in that part of the world?

The music from the Iberian Peninsula reflects the influences and changes that were happening all over Europe throughout the period that MEMF is examining this summer.

From the “romances” and “villancicos” of Juan del Encina during the time of Columbus to the Baroque era masses, secular songs and instrumental music of Antonio Soler (organ), Luis de Briceño and Gaspar Sanz (vihuela/guitar, below top) and Domenico Scarlatti (below bottom), Spanish music maintained its own unique traditions born of its complicated mixture of cultures and expanding global empire while still reflecting the overall developments that were occurring in Italy, France and Germany.

Some crucial differences include the presence of the Muslim and Jewish poetic and musical influence in the predominantly Catholic region reflected in preferred instrumentation where the vihuela was used more often than the lute, the exotic stories from Middle Eastern sources and the harmonies and melodies that are unique to the Spanish repertoire.

The fact that the political makeup of the area was constantly changing and being buffeted by global changes can make it difficult to understand what really constitutes “Spanish” just as Italy and Germany were not unified in the way we think of them today but were made of individual and distinct regions.

There was much blurring of borders between countries. For example, Naples, which we would think of as Italian, was a Spanish city for most of this time period, with a flourishing court, which supported the flourishing of the musical culture. Artistic changes and developments reflect this rather flexible organization of regions which did not take its current shape until well into the 19th century. (below is an old map of the Iberian Peninsula)

What music and composers of that era have been most neglected and least neglected by historians and performers?

The music from the Iberian Peninsula has been receiving increasing attention in the last 50 years or so. MEMF has focused on this area several times as new editions and discoveries are coming to light.

There are many reasons for this, including the German bias created by musicologists from that area starting in the 19th century. The lack of understanding of a complicated history and a condescension directed towards all things from the “hotter” regions of Europe except for Greece also prevented research, recording and appreciation of this varied repertoire.

The composers that will be most familiar to audiences will be Cristobal de Morales (below top), Francisco Guerrero (below middle) and Tomas Luis de Victoria (below bottom), who are known for their choral music including motets and settings of the Catholic Mass and Mateo Flecha (father and son), who composed secular choral pieces featuring popular tunes of the day put together in a kind of musical pastiche called an “ensalada.”

There are many less known composers from the various regions of Spain.

Juan del Encina is probably responsible for the collection titled ” Cancionero de Palacio” and is credited with 60 pieces from this volume of nearly 500 first published in the 1490s. Juan Hidalgo (below top and in the YouTube video at the bottom) is credited with the creation of the zarzuela, a theatrical form similar to the Neapolitan opera of the time. There is Diego Ortiz, who flourished in Naples, and Antonio de Cabezón (below bottom), who composed primarily keyboard music and Gaspar Sanz, who is familiar to modern guitarists and composed many pieces for the vihuela.

Can you tell us about the program and performers for the All-Festival concert on July 15?

The All-Festival Concert is unique to MEMF. All week long, workshop participants and faculty will work side by side to create Iberian Tapestry: Music and Conquest from the Spanish Golden Age, which includes sacred and secular compositions by Victoria, Guerrero, Flecha, Vasquez, music from the Moors of the Reconquista, Sephardic music for the heritage of the Jews, and from the New World.

This concert will include narrations selected from Don Quixote.

This year, the program was created and will be directed by Grant Herreid (below), who also curated the Piffaro program that opens the MEMF 2017 Concert Series.

Are there other sessions, guest lectures and certain performers that you especially recommend for the general public?

The week is so full of wonderful adventures that I really encourage people to experience it all.

Besides the concert series and workshop classes there are pre-concert lectures and a dance event, ¡Bailemos!, on Thursday, July 13, 2017 at 7:30 p.m., in the Frederic March Play Circle on the second floor of the Memorial Union.

Several free events, besides the Harp concert and master class are the Participant Concert on Friday, July 14, at 1 p.m. in Mills Concert Hall; the Early Opera Workshop; and the Loud Band free concert on Saturday, July 15, at 2 p.m. at Music Hall featuring participants from the Advanced Loud Bound Intensive and the Early Opera & Continuo Workshop performing works by Tomás Luis de Victoria, Francisco Guerrero and several cancioneros plus scenes from La púrpura de la rosa by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco.

MEMF provides a wonderful opportunity to go back in time and be immersed in the Spanish Renaissance through music, art, dance, concerts and lectures, plus workshop classes. People can play an active role participating as a student, or join us in the audience to listen to the glorious sounds of the historical instruments and voices as we recreate the music from the Golden Age of Spain.

Check out our website for the most up-to-date information and how to get tickets: www.madisonearlymusic.org