From Ariodante.
Musical excerpts. Sophia Brumfitt- Early Music singer.
From Ariodante.
Excpt from Cantata BWV 127
A song for Mary Hodgson from William Congreve's play 'The Way of the World'.
with Rosemary Hodgson on Theorbo.
Lute by Rosemary Hodgson
Women’s song from the Trouvère era: the late twelfth/early thirteenth century. The story tells of beautiful Doete, who waits for her love who is fighting in foreign countries. She hears that he has died in the rout, and she retreats to her own monastery, which she founds to protect all true lovers.
15th Century rondeau for 3 voices, it is a chanson celebrating the New Year, in which the singer longs for a new lover with the New Year, with whom he can smile, sing and dance, and to whom he can give his heart, and body and worldly goods.
From Sesons by Bardos Band
A bitter-sweet lullaby, in which a mother sings to her growing son and longs for his father to return.
Early English excerpt from the ‘Parlement of Fowls’ c. 1382). The rhyming form is typical of the fashionable rondeau form, and set to music by Bardos director Rebecca Austen-Brown.
From Seson by Bardos Band
Pilgrim’s song from Alfonso el Sabio’s book at Monserrat in Gallician- Portugese. In this song, a priest swallows a spider with the blood of the holy mass. It does not poison him, but lives under his skin until, while sitting out in the sun, he scratches his arm and the spider appears under his fingernail.
From Seson by Bardos Band
14th century Italian Ballata for two voices. This is a joyful welcome to the spring- to the return of green leaves, and flowers, and love.
From Seson by Bardos Band
Cantiga no. 3 from the Cantigas de Amigo, in Galician- Portuguese from 13th century. A girl tells her mother that she has heard from her lover and will go to meet him at Vigo.
Gothic Harp- Leah Stuttard, Medieval Fiddle- Rebecca Austen-Brown