Ravinia 2019, Issue 2, Week 3

7:30 PM TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2019 MARTIN THEATRE STILE ANTICO † HELEN ASHBY, soprano KATE ASHBY, soprano REBECCA HICKEY, soprano EMMA ASHBY, alto ELEANOR HARRIES CLARKE, alto KATIE SCHOFIELD, alto BENEDICT HYMAS, tenor ROSS BUDDIE, tenor TOM KELLY, tenor JAMES ARTHUR, bass WILL DAWES, bass NATHAN HARRISON, bass Queen of Muses BYRD This sweet and merry month of May An Accession Day Gift: Cantiones Sacrae of 1575 TALLIS Absterge Domine * BYRD Attolite portas * Partbooks for the Queen: A Gift from Erik XIV of Sweden LASSUS Madonna mia, pieta chiam et vita * WILLAERT Vecchie letrose non valete niente * SANDRIN Doulce memoire * William Byrd: Gentleman of the Chapel and Recusant Catholic BYRD O Lord make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen BYRD Ne irascaris * –Intermission– TAVERNER Christe Jesu pastor bone * A Lover’s Sighs: Suitors’ Songs DOWLAND Now, O now I needs must part * DOWLAND Can she excuse my wrongs * Alfonso Ferrabosco, the Elder: Musician, Courtier, and Spy? FERRABOSCO Ad Dominum cum tribularer * FERRABOSCO O remember not our old sins * FERRABOSCO Exaudi Deus orationem meam * The Triumphs of Oriana WILBYE The Lady Oriana * FARMER Fair nymphs, I heard one telling * WEELKES As Vesta was from Latmos Hill descending † Ravinia debut * First performance at Ravinia Celebrating Stile Antico’s 10th anniversary QUEEN OF MUSES Queen Elizabeth I was one of the most signif- icant patrons of music in British history: her reign (1558–1603) saw an unprecedented flour- ishing of music and the arts, both as a result of her direct patronage and from those who used their music to gain her favor—whether court- iers, diplomats, or even suitors. The music of the present program explores some of these varied musical connections within the cultural orbit of the Elizabethan court. Without doubt, Elizabeth’s best-known court composer was William Byrd (ca . 1540–1623); throughout his long life he composed and pub- lished a wide range of music, both sacred and secular, both for Elizabeth’s court and—perhaps more riskily in a Protestant regime—for the cir- cle of recusant Catholics in which he moved. His masterful and intricate six-part madrigal This sweet and merry month of May opens the program, conjuring up an idyllic pastoral scene in which Elizabeth herself is joyfully “greeted with a rhyme.” The two motets which follow are from Can- tiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur—a collection of motets which Byrd and his close friend and teacher Thomas Tallis (ca . 1505–85) compiled and published in 1575, contributing 17 motets each, in honor of Elizabeth’s 17 years on the throne and to commemorate her accession day, November 17. It was also the first publica- tion to be made under a music-printing monop- oly she had granted to the two composers, and it consists of pieces employing a wide range of mu- sical styles and techniques—as it were, a kind of varied demonstration of the two composers’ art. Byrd’s Attolite portas sets verses from Psalm 23 (Vulgate) in richly expansive and varied six-part imitative counterpoint; Tallis’s Absterge Domine is also a substantial work, albeit characterized by simpler, syllabic points of imitation in pre- dominantly “note-against-note” polyphony and shorter melodic phrases—perhaps demonstrat- ing a reticent nod towards the “reformed” Prot- estant style of English church music. William Byrd RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JUNE 17 – JUNE 23, 2019 90