Trobár Talks: Recent Episodes
Trobár - Allison Monroe, Elena Mullins, Karin Weston
In this episode the trio reads aloud an English translation of "Guigemar," an engaging and somewhat strange lai (or tale) by Marie de France, preserved in a manuscript from the 13th c. And of course we provide context and color commentary along the way!
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Warning: This month’s episode of Trobár Talks is so bad that we can only imagine you all using it as blackmail material years from now. Regardless, we wish everyone a happy holiday season and promise to do better in 2022!! *
In the episode we read excerpts of The Second Shepherds’ Play in a modern translation (with a few semi-appropriate musical insertions).
Dover Thrift Editions - https://www.etsy.com/listing/1060686394/vintage-pop-culture-book-everyman-and?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_c-books_movies_and_music-books-literature_and_fiction-literary_fiction&utm_custom1=_k_CjwKCAiAh_GNBhAHEiwAjOh3ZLanO8vQFNFhqRTzDxncvEj0bPZk3oyNGFL5E2lte3ac3IYmAI66mxoCJMQQAvD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12573073825_119955070496_507798476349_aud-1184785539738:pla-316241130904_c__1060686394_124916138&utm_custom2=12573073825&gclid=CjwKCAiAh_GNBhAHEiwAjOh3ZLanO8vQFNFhqRTzDxncvEj0bPZk3oyNGFL5E2lte3ac3IYmAI66mxoCJMQQAvD_BwE
Ed. Candace Ward
Reprint of The Second Shepherds’ Play, Everyman and Other Early Plays translated by Clarence Griffin Child (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press, 1910)
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In this month's episode we interview award-winning playwright and poet Robert Kehew. Kehew was gracious enough to let us use some of the translations from his book Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours, a Bilingual Edition, for our latest season program, Found in Translation 2.0. You can learn more about the book and even hear some live readings of their translations by Kehew and W. D. Snodgrass here, and here's a link to a talk given by Kehew at the Library of Congress shortly after his book was published.
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In this episode we take a tour through Conrad von Zabern's 15th c. treatise on singing chant, "De modo bene cantandi choralem cantum." Von Zabern's exhortations are entertaining and still relevant today!
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This month we chat with our friend and colleague, David McCormick. David is the Executive Director of Early Music America, the Artistic Director of Early Music Access Project, a beautiful vielle player, and an overall delightful human being. We get to hear all about how he came to early music, and what his hopes and dreams are for the field.
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In this episode we discuss the poetic pastourelle genre popular with 13th c. French trouvères, and read excerpts from Christine de Pizan's longer narrative pastourelle, the Dit de la pastoure (Tale of the Shepherdess). Medieval pastourelles all begin with the same setup: a knight encounters a shepherdess while he's out riding. The stories play out in a variety of ways, but there is a consistent undertone of potential sexual violence, which is often realized in the narrative conclusion. While the tale is typically told from the perspective of the knight, Christine gives the shepherdess narrative control. She's a fully fleshed out character, with a sense of purpose and with aspirations that are upended by her encounter with the knight. Due to the sensitive topic and brief graphic description of rape that comes up in our introduction to the genre, we've decided to classify this episode as explicit.
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In this episode the trio was fortunate enough to snag a conversation with Anne Azéma, French-born vocalist, scholar and stage director, as well as the director of The Boston Camerata since 2008 and the French ensemble Aziman, which she founded, since 2005. We got to hear about Anne's musical training, and chat about the challenges of working with and presenting medieval music to modern audiences. Enjoy!
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In this episode Allison and Elena are joined by guest artists Sian Ricketts and Allen Otte, providing you a behind the scenes glance at our upcoming live concerts! We even preview two of our favorite selections from the program. Learn more about the two shows here, happening this Sep. 17 & 18 in Cleveland Heights and Cleveland's Clark Fulton neighborhood.
And learn more about the excellent makers of Elena's harp, Campbell Harps, here!
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In this episode the trio explores Christmas traditions in medieval England, including feasting, decorating, knife throwing, caroling, and extra-special holiday treats (dried fruit and nuts disguised as entrails, anyone?)
Watch this space for performances by yours truly of seasonal music, including one of the carols discussed in the episode.
Relevant episodes of the History of English Podcast:
The Birth of English Song ** Sir Gawain and the Green Knight **** Food for Thought
Relevant episodes of Tasting History:
What Did Medieval Peasants Eat? ** How to Make a Medieval Trencher
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Join the trio for a romp through The Story of an Early Music Quartet, Sterling Jones's first-hand account of the rise and fall of the Studio der frühen Musik. The Studio helped set the standard for medieval music performance in the 1960s and influenced future generations of performers as founding members of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Historical Performance Department at Indiana University. The book is full of delightful anecdotes that paint a picture of an early music scene somewhat different from today's.
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In this episode the trio discusses the influence that Middle Eastern traditions may or may not have had on the development of European medieval music, and what modern re-creators of the music (like Thomas Binkley) have learned from studying those traditions. In particular we discuss Binkley's "On the Modern Performance of Medieval Monophonic Repertory," Jonathan Shull's "Locating the Past in the Present: Living Traditions and the Performance of Early Music," Kirsten Yri's "Thomas Binkley and the Studio der Frühen Musik: challenging 'the myth of Westernness," and John Haines's "The Arabic Style of Performing Medieval Music."
Mentioned in the episode: musical selections by Boston Camerata; Sequentia; New York Pro Musica; Studio der Frühen Musik; more Studio; Altramar
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A long-overdue episode detailing our 2022-23 season that started a month ago (cue rending of garments and gnashing of teeth).
Check out our season details here!
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In this episode we read and discuss a letter that Hildegard wrote to the Prelates at Mainz, who had placed her and her nuns under interdict for failing to follow their instructions. The interdict had deprived them of the ability to sing the divine office, a punishment that Hildegard believed was not just unnecessarily harsh, but also contradictory to the will of God. In this letter, she makes some of her strongest recorded statements about music's essential role in worship, and its power to connect humanity with its maker. You can access the letter (pp. 76-80) and many others at this link. We hope you enjoy the conversation!
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In this episode, we explore the symbolically rich descriptions of the appearance and dress of the virtues that Hildegard experienced in her visions, and described in her work Scivias (c. 1150).
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In this episode we get a bit more acquainted with one of our favorite saints, the 12th-c. abbess, writer, composer, mystic, visionary, philosopher, and botanist Hildegard von Bingen. As impressive a person as Hildegard was, she was not uncontroversial in her own day. An exchange of letters between Hildegard and a Mistress Tengswich reveal aspects of her world view and ways of operating that may trouble you as much as they did some of her contemporaries. You can access those letters (pp. 127-128) and many others at this link. We hope you enjoy the conversation!
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In this month's episode we interview award-winning playwright and poet Robert Kehew. Kehew was gracious enough to let us use some of the translations from his book Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours, a Bilingual Edition, for our latest season program, Found in Translation 2.0. You can learn more about the book and even hear some live readings of their translations by Kehew and W. D. Snodgrass here, and here's a link to a talk given by Kehew at the Library of Congress shortly after his book was published.
Support the show
In this episode we take a tour through Conrad von Zabern's 15th c. treatise on singing chant, "De modo bene cantandi choralem cantum." Von Zabern's exhortations are entertaining and still relevant today!
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/trobarmedieval)
This month we chat with our friend and colleague, David McCormick. David is the Executive Director of Early Music America, the Artistic Director of Early Music Access Project, a beautiful vielle player, and an overall delightful human being. We get to hear all about how he came to early music, and what his hopes and dreams are for the field.
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/trobarmedieval)
In this episode we discuss the poetic pastourelle genre popular with 13th c. French trouvères, and read excerpts from Christine de Pizan's longer narrative pastourelle, the Dit de la pastoure(Tale of the Shepherdess). Medieval pastourelles all begin with the same setup: a knight encounters a shepherdess while he's out riding. The stories play out in a variety of ways, but there is a consistent undertone of potential sexual violence, which is often realized in the narrative conclusion. While the tale is typically told from the perspective of the knight, Christine gives the shepherdess narrative control. She's a fully fleshed out character, with a sense of purpose and with aspirations that are upended by her encounter with the knight. Due to the sensitive topic and brief graphic description of rape that comes up in our introduction to the genre, we've decided to classify this episode as explicit.
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/trobarmedieval)
In this episode the trio was fortunate enough to snag a conversation with Anne Azéma, French-born vocalist, scholar and stage director, as well as the director of The Boston Camerata since 2008 and the French ensemble Aziman, which she founded, since 2005. We got to hear about Anne's musical training, and chat about the challenges and joys of working with and presenting medieval music to modern audiences. Enjoy!
Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/trobarmedieval)