Dato/tid
23.10.2016
20:00 – 21:00
Sted
KoncertKirken
SEQUENTIA (us/de)
Benjamin Bagby, co-founder and director
Benjamin Bagby – voice, harps, symphonia
Norbert Rodenkirchen – flutes, harp
Fragments for the End of Time
Fortis atque amara
Frankish sequence (9th century)
…sin tac piqueme, daz er touuan scal
the ‘Muspilli Fragment’, probably Fulda (early 9th century)
Unsar trohtin hat farsalt
instrumental version of the Freisinger Petruslied, Bavaria (late 9th c.)
Thes habet er ubar woroltring
‘de die Iudicii’ from the Evangelienbuch of Otfrid von Weißenburg (Alsace, †875)
Gaude coelestis sponsa
instrumental piece based on Frankish sequence melodies (9th c.)
Thaer waes swylcra fela
the ‚Lay of the Last Survivor’ from the Beowulf epic (Anglo-Saxon, ca. 8th c.)
Occidentana
Instrumental piece based on a 9th century Frankish sequence melody
Iudicii signum
the ‚Prophecy of the Erythraean Sibyl’ (Aquitaine, 11th c.)
Scalam ad caelos
Instrumental piece based on a 9th century Frankish sequence melody
Summi regis archangele Michahel
‘Sequentia, quam Alcuinus composuit Karolo Imperatori’ (Einsiedeln, 10th c.)
A fellr austan um eitrdala
the ‘Prophecy of the Völva’, from the Old Icelandic Edda (Iceland, 10th c.)
Fragments for the End of Time
From the time of Christianity’s introduction into Europe until the end of the first millennium, apocalyptic images of the End of Days and the Last Judgement were widespread, both in texts and in the visual arts. These images, based largely on the Biblical Revelation of John, at times bear a remarkable similarity to the pagan Germanic descriptions of the world’s destruction during the final terrible battle (Ragnarök) between the gods (Odin, Thor, etc.) and their mortal enemies, the giants. These disparate sources share certain characteristics: the terrifying words of female oracles; the sounding of the horn; the massing of armies from below and above; the breakdown of material reality and the final destruction of the world by fire.
The image of the Apocalypse which most readily comes to mind is associated with the almost incomprehensible mystery of the ‚end of time’, filled with terror and destruction. We envision the chilling image of the four horsemen mercilessly riding down upon our doomed world. But the Greek word apokalypsis actually means unveiling, or revelation, an image strongly linked to our mortal desire for access to the mysteries of existence, to our almost physical longing for union with creation and with the deity. John’s Book of Revelation is not only a faithful report of what he saw and heard in visions on the island of Patmos, but it is also filled with the feeling of his impatience and desire. In all these senses of the word, medieval artists created an especially powerful body of sung poetry, often in obscure images and language, visionary and prophetic, to prepare the singer and listener alike for a particular inner voyage of comprehension, and to awaken the soul to the experience of ‚seeing’ that which is one day to be revealed.
In this programme, we explore the musical world of these surprising, powerful texts, some of which survive only as fragments: the Old High German Muspilli, which describes the waking of the dead, the workings of Satan, the fight of Elias with Anti-Christ, the call to judgement, and warns of the uselessness of wealth and bribery in that final courtroom; the prophecy of the Erythrean Sibyl (an acrostic text in Augustine’s translation in The City of God) as sung in Aquitanian cloisters; the Alsatian monk Otfrid’s rhyming German verses which describe the terrible final day; the Old English ‘Lay of the Last Survivor’ (found embedded in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf epic) describes the bleak and lonely end to an unnamed tribe, as their useless treasure is heaped in a cave by the lone survivor, to await a dragon’s arrival; masterful Latin sequences from Frankish tradition, describing the Last Day and praising the archangels; instrumental interludes based on sequelae – untexted sequence melodies with enigmatic titles which point to possible pre-Christian usages; and finally, from the Old Icelandic Edda collection, the harrowing description of the pagan Ragnarök, when ‚Muspell’s People’ and the armies of Surt and Loki launch their final, deadly assault on the indigenous northern European gods.
The instruments used in this concert include reconstructions of Germanic harps (based on 7th century instruments from Oberflacht, near Stuttgart), an early medieval triangular harp, and copies of medieval transverse flutes (including a flute made from a swan’s bone, based on an 11th century instrument unearthed near Speyer).
Fragments for the End of Time
Fortis atque amara
Frankish sequence (9th century)
Source: Paris, B.N. lat. 1084 / transcription Alejandro Planchart.
The Frankish sequences – newly-created pieces whose role in the liturgy is not always clear to us — were often creations of great beauty and imagination. Some of their melodies may have roots in earlier traditions, and the texts also display a succinct virtuosity, cleverly incorporating imagery from earlier Christian writers in new and surprising ways. This apocalyptic sequence, with its unusual melody, introduces most of the themes in our program.
…sin tac piqueme, daz er touuan scal
the ‚Muspilli-Fragment’, probably Fulda (early 9th century)
Source: München, Bayr. Staatsb. Clm 14098 / Reconstruction: B. Bagby
Among the most enigmatic texts in Old High German, this anonymous meditation on the Last Judgement has survived only in fragmentary form. It was named by a 19th-century scholar who was intrigued by the word ‚Muspilli’ (the mysterious Germanic word ‚Muspell’ is generally believed to refer to the end of the world by fire), a pagan image surviving in a Christian context. The sermon-like narrative streams freely through a series of images: armies of angels and demons fighting over the recently-dead soul; the security and sweetness of paradise; the fight of Elijah with the Anti-Christ; the burning of the earth and heavens (Muspilli) as a sign of the approaching judgement; the blowing of the horn which raises the dead to face their judge; the impossibility of bribery or of hiding past crimes…
Unsar trohtin hat farsalt
instrumental version of the Freisinger Petruslied, Bavaria (late 9th century)
Source: München, Bayr. Staatsb. Clm 6260, fol. 158v. / Transcription: N. Rodenkirchen
This processional with refrain is one of the oldest surviving melodies found in a German source. The manuscript is neumed throughout, making a transcription possible.
Thes habet er ubar woroltring
‚De die Iudicii’ from the ‚Gospel Book’ of Otfrid von Weissenburg (Alsace, †875)
Source: Heidelberg, Cod.Pal.lat. 52 / Reconstruction: B. Bagby
This heartfelt description of the final judgement is taken from the Evangelienbuch of the Alsatian monk Otfrid von Weissenburg (the first German poet whose name we know), who wrote commentaries and paraphrases on the Gospels in the local German dialect (which he calls Frankish) of his fellow brothers and the nearby noblemen. In a prologue, he states that a pious matron named Judith urged him on in this work. These verses were not intended for silent reading, but were probably ‚performed’ before a partially pre-literate audience in the style of the Germanic oral poetry long appreciated by learned men and women. Several manuscript sources of this text contain musical notation. Here, in an excerpt from the chapter entitled in die iudicii (‚on the Judgement Day’), we experience Otfrid’s very personal involvement with the terrifying story he has to tell.
Gaude celestis sponsa
instrumental piece based on Frankish sequence melodies (9th century)
Source:München, clm.10075 xiii in / Reconstruction: N. Rodenkirchen (with additonal materials from other Frankish sequences)
The sequence melodies dating from the time of Notker, monk of St. Gall (9th century), were sometimes written in the early manuscripts as textless sequelae. The exact pitches of these melodies can only be determined by consulting later sources, which are consistent over the centuries and give us a rather clear image of the tunes. It is highly likely that these sequelae were also performed instrumentally, as the melodies pre-date the texts of the sequences and they are not taken from Gregorian chant; they are perhaps survivors of a pre-Christian, indigenous melodic tradition. In the ex tempore interludes performed on the flute in this program, Norbert Rodenkirchen is principally interested in exploring the evident relationships amongst various early medieval sequences. These relationships, which often can be reduced to a handful of archtypical phrases, point to an orally-transmitted repertoire of archaic ‚ur-sequences’ which are reflected upon here in improvised instrumental practice. The central material is provided by the sequence Gaude coelestis sponsa, also known as Adducentur.
Thaer waes swylcra fela
‚The Lay of the Last Survivor’ from the Beowulf-Epic (Anglo-Saxon, ca. 8th century)
Source: London, BL, Cotton Vitellius A. XV. / Reconstruction: B. Bagby
The end of a people, the bitter confrontation with the loss of all friends, family, possessions and memories, can be seen as a microcosm of the end of the world. In this fragment (extracted from the Beowulf epic, where it forms a sad prelude to the episode of the golden cup stolen from a dragon’s hoard), we learn that an entire unnamed northern tribe has been decimated by war, with only one man left alive. He carries the people’s treasure (gold, weapons, and even a harp) into a nearby cave as a final gesture of remembrance, uttering these elegiac words to the earth itself before he, too, is carried off by a lonely death. (The hidden treasure is later discovered and appropriated by a dragon, a supernatural beast which is often associated with the Apocalypse in Christian tradition).
Occidentana
instrumental piece based on a Frankish sequence melody (10th c.)
Source: St. Gall / Reconstruction: N. Rodenkirchen.
No instrumental music survives in written form from the period before 1200, and yet we know that instrumental music was performed with great sophistication. We can use various resources to make reconstructions of lost traditions: in the earliest sequelae sources, we find pieces with exotic titles, attesting to their popularity, or to an association with a certain story, an instrument, or a mythological character. When religious sequence texts were added later (and the melodies were finally written down), the titles fell into disuse. The exact nature of these titles will always remain a mystery which stimulates the imagination of musicians today. The tune Occidentana is found in several sources, sometimes under the name Cithara (= harp). To honor this ancient piece, Norbert Rodenkirchen performs it here on a tiny flute made from a delicate swan’s bone. The remains of just such an instrument, dating from the 11th century, were found in a castle near the ancient city of Speyer, Germany.
Iudicii signum
‚The Prophecy of the Erythraean Sybil’ (Aquitaine, 11th century)
Source: Paris, BN lat. 1154 / Transcription: Sam Barrett
This is the prophecy of the Erythraen Sybil, a pagan female oracle said to have lived at the time of Troy, whose words are transmitted by St. Augustine (The City of God, XVIII, 23) in an acrostic poem. This medieval version, which includes a refrain, was sung in Aquitanian cloisters during the liturgy for the massacre of the Holy Innocents (28 December), a feast closely associated with apocalyptic themes.
Scalam ad caelos
Instrumental piece based on a 9th century Frankish sequence melody
Source: Notker’s Scalam ad caelos (Transcription: R. Crocker) / Reconstruction: Bagby & Rodenkirchen
Here, we reconstruct what could have been an instrumental tradition of Frankish minstrels, using a melody which survived when it was adapted for a sequence by the poet-monk Notker of St. Gall. Although we will never learn the story behind the original melody, we do know of the the power that such tunes had over the centuries, both within the church and ouside it.
Summi regis archangele Michahel
Sequenz ‚quam Alcuinus composuit Karolo Imperatori’ [Sequence‚ which Alcuin composed for the emperor Charlemagne], (Einsiedeln, 10th c., but possibly created earlier: late 8th century)
Source: Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek Codex 121 (10th c.) / Transcription: N. Rodenkirchen
This is one of the most widely-known sequences of the Middle Ages. In the dedication to Charlemagne, attributed to the monk Alcuin, we learn that the emperor is compared to the archangel Michael, who defeated the dragon for the redemption of mankind. We might see the medieval fascination with Christian dragon-killers (also with snakes and dragon-like beasts, especially in connection with the End of Time) as a lingering, subconscious element of pagan culture and mythology. In the case of Summi regis we may have before us an original sequence by Alcuin (who was active among the literati at the court of Charlemagne from 782-789), making it also the earliest-known sequence by a known author to have survived.
A fellr austan um eitrdala
The ‚prophecy of the Völva [Seeress]’ from the Old Icelandic Edda (Iceland, late 10th c.)
Source: Reykjavik, Stofnun A. Magnussonar‚ Gl.kgl.sml.2365 4to (‚Codex Regius’) / Reconstruction: B. Bagby & N. Rodenkirchen
Völuspá, one of the most famous Old Icelandic poems, is the oracular speech of an ancient seeress conjured by the god Odin to reveal the horrible future of the gods. She first tells of the beginning of time, the creation of the world, and then (in the final section performed here) of the climactic battle [Ragnarök] between the gods and their sworn enemies. The fate of the gods is fortold in apocalyptic language: a breakdown of social order, raging battles, ravening wolves, the clarion horn, the dragon, and the coming of ‚Muspell’s people’ on a boat piloted by that vicious trickster, Loki. Elements of this text may seem familiar to us today: nine centuries after its creation, Völuspá was the main inspiration for Richard Wagner’s ‚Götterdämmerung’.
sequentia
Sequentia is among world’s most respected and innovative ensembles for medieval music. Under the direction of Benjamin Bagby, Sequentia can look back on almost 40 years of international concert tours, a comprehensive discography of more than 30 recordings spanning the entire Middle Ages (including the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen), film and television productions of medieval music drama, and a new generation of young performers trained in professional courses given by members of the ensemble.
Sequentia, co-founded by Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton, has performed throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas, India, the Middle East, East Asia, Africa and Australia, and has received numerous prizes (including a Disque d’Or, several Diapasons d’Or, two Edison Prizes, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and a Grammy nomination) for many of its thirty recordings on the BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi (SONY), Raumklang and Marc Aurel Edition labels. The most recent CD releases include reconstructions of music from lost oral traditions of the Middle Ages (The Lost Songs Project), including 9th and 10th century Germanic songs for the Apocalypse (Fragments for the End of Time), the ensemble’s acclaimed program of music from the Icelandic Edda: The Rheingold Curse, as well as the earliest-known European songs (Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper) and medieval liturgical chant (Chant Wars, a co-production with the Paris-based ensemble Dialogos). Sequentia has created over 70 innovative concert programs that encompass the entire spectrum of medieval music, giving performances all over the world, in addition to their creation of music-theater projects such as Hildegard von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum, the Cividale Planctus Marie, the Bordesholmer Marienklage, Heinrich von Meissen’s Frauenleich, and the medieval Icelandic Edda. In 2013 Sequentia released on the SONY label the final CD of Hildegard von Bingen’s complete works: Celestial Hierarchy, which immediately received a Diapason d’Or. The complete works of Hildegard will be re-issued by SONY in 2016. The work of the ensemble is divided between a small touring ensemble of vocal and instrumental soloists, and a larger ensemble of voices for special performance projects. After many years based in Cologne, Germany, Sequentia’s home was re-established in Paris in 2003.
http://www.sequentia.org
About the Sequentia Lost Songs Project:
In the mid-1980’s, Benjamin Bagby began his work on the reconstruction of the Beowulf epic, and since then he has been deeply involved with those European musical repertoires which have literally ‘vanished’, for which the surviving manuscripts do not provide enough information for a reliable transcription. Aided by musicologists and philologists (such as Sam Barrett and Peter Dronke of Cambridge University, Jan Ziolkowski of Harvard University, and Heimir Pálsson of Uppsala University), Bagby has built on his work with Beowulf to reconstruct the music of other early sources: Anglo-Saxon texts (such as Deor and the Wanderer); the deep reservoir of stories found in the Icelandic Poetic Edda; the Old Saxon Heliand; the Old High German Muspilli, the Hildebrandslied and Otfrid von Weissenburg’s Evangelienbuch; the Latin and German lyrics found in the 11th century manuscript known as the Cambridge Songs. Many of these have been recorded:
– Monks Singing Pagans: medieval songs of gods, heroes and strong women (10-13th centuries)
Sequentia concert program 2016
– Frankish Phantoms: Echoes from Carolingian Palaces (8th-10th centuries)
Sequentia concert program 2011-present
– Endzeitfragmente / Fragments for the End of Time (10th-11th centuries)
Sequentia concert program 2005-present; CD released in 2008
– Beowulf (8th century)
Benjamin Bagby solo concert 1990-present; DVD released in 2007
– Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper (9th and 10th centuries)
Sequentia concert program 2000-2007; CD released in 2004
– The Rheingold Curse: A Germanic Saga of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda (8th century) Sequentia music-theater & concert program 2001-2013; CD released in 2001
– Edda: Myths from Medieval Iceland (8th century)
Sequentia music-theatre project 1995-1997; CD released in 1999
– El Sabio: Songs for King Alfonso X of Castile and Leon (1221-1284) [Andalusian kharjas]
Sequentia concert program 1990-92; CD released in 1992
More info: http://sequentia.org/projects/lost_songs.html
The Artists
Vocalist, harper and medievalist Benjamin Bagby, who was captivated by medieval music as a boy, has been an important figure in the field of medieval musical performance for over 35 years. Since 1977, when he and the late Barbara Thornton co-founded Sequentia, his time has been almost entirely devoted to the research, performance and recording work of the ensemble. Apart from this, Mr. Bagby is deeply involved with the solo performance of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic oral poetry: an acclaimed performance Beowulf has been heard worldwide and was released as a DVD in 2007. In 2010 he received the Howard Mayer Brown Lifetime Achievement Award from Early Music America. In 2016 he was awarded the REMA Early Music Artist Award. In addition to researching and creating over 70 programs for Sequentia, Mr. Bagby has published widely, writing about medieval performance practice; as a guest lecturer and professor, he has taught courses and workshops all over Europe and North America. Since 2005 he teaches medieval music performance practice at the University of Paris – Sorbonne.
www.BagbyBeowulf.com
Norbert Rodenkirchen, who studied flute and Baroque traverso with Hans Martin Mueller and Günther Hoeller at the Staatliche Musikhochschule Köln, has been the flute player of Sequentia since 1996 and also works regularly with the French ensemble Dialogos directed by Katarina Livljanic. With both ensembles he has been invited to numerous international festivals. He is also much in demand as a composer of music for theater and film as well as a producer for CD projects. From 2003 to 2011 Norbert Rodenkirchen was the artistic director of the concert series „Schnuetgen Konzerte – Musik des Mittelalters“ in the medieval museum of Cologne. With the singer Sabine Lutzenberger Norbert Rodenkirchen released a very well received duo CD In forgotten tones” / Sangsprueche of Meister Frauenlob. Additionally he has given workshops on medieval instrumental improvisation at the Mozarteum Salzburg, at the Musikhochschule Köln and the conservatories of Lyon and Liege as well and is preparing to publish his first book on that topic Stante Pede – the lost art of medieval instrumental improvisation. In 2012 he released his third solo CD Hameln Anno 1284 / Medieval flute music on the trail of the Pied Piper on the label Christophorus/ note1 and was consequently invited with that successful solo program to many international concert series or festivals, for example in Copenhagen, Moscow, Boston, Paris, Oslo and Vancouver.
http://www.norbertrodenkirchen.de
TICKETS: 100 DKK / Stud: 50 DKK