#red byrd

[18thcenturythirsttrap]

[18thcenturythirsttrap]

Claude's Advent Calendar Day 1

I'm going to try and do 'Advent calendar' posts this year - 24 musical posts all related to Advent or Christmas. Remember, this being me, the music could be anything from 15th C carols to The Fall. You have been warned! 😁

To start us off on the first Sunday of Advent, here's John the Baptist being downright obstructive set to music by Orlando Gibbons (1583 - 1625) in that stereotypically 16th and 17th C English format, a 'verse anthem'. Fun fact: this solo is usually given to a countertenor, and I used to sing it every year in my old chapel choir at university (the gender euphoria was marvellous). I can also sing it when it's transposed down for tenor as in this performance, though.

I'm never 100% sure of the merit of 'original pronunciation' performance, certainly I know that this is a matter open to debate. However, I like these recordings by Red Byrd and the Rose Consort of Viols because they're one to a part, which (I feel) means you get a better appreciation of how all those parts combine to make the whole.

[deafdreamtracks]

John Paul Jones: Amores Passados - So Elle Encina

“So el encina, encina...” a clear female voice repeats this refrain over gentle male harmonies and lulling harp, in a delectable setting of an old Spanish poem, by Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones.

I am reliving Linda Hirst’s vocal on Red Byrd’s Songs of Love and Death, from the short-lived Factory Classical label, unheard since the early 1990s. 

This video seems to be a more recent recording by the same harpist Andrew Lawrence-King.