Micrologus; Dinner Guests

81-20 DINNER GUESTS

It is an unfortunate truth that women have been largely excluded from the history of our civilization, and the history of music has been no exception to this. However, women have played varied and important roles in the music world. And, while new research is gradually shedding more light on their contribution, their praises have been largely unsung. I would, therefore, need no excuse to devote a Micrologus program to the attempted remedying of this situation on however small a scale, but, in fact, there is a good reason for producing such a program now: Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is on display in Cleveland from May 10 through the middle of August. This work of art is a celebration of important women, both mythological and historical, through artistic media which have traditionally been the domain of women, namely, needlework, ceramics, and ceramic painting. Briefly, the work consists of a large triangular table having thirteen place-settings on each side for the so-called "dinner guests," thirty-nine outstanding women. Each place-setting consists of a specially designed embroidered runner and a painted plate, which were individually conceived by Judy Chicago through the contemplation of the life and achievement of each of the women. In addition, the names of some 999 other women of achievement are inscribed on ·the ceramic floor beneath the table. The earliest of the women represented whose musical contribution we will be exploring today is Hildegard. She was Abbess of a Benedictine convent, which she herself founded near Bingen in Germany, and besides writing Latin hymns for her sisters to sing, she was renowned as a philosopher and theologian. The piece we will hear is "Ave generosa virgin" (Hall, generous Virgin). The performance is by the Schola of Hildegard's still-flourishing abbey.

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Hildegard was born about the year 1098 and the next composer whose work we will hear on today's program was born about the year 1140. She is a troubadour, the Countess of Dia, sometimes known as Beatrice. Of twenty known active women troubadours, only twenty-three poems have come down to us; and of those twenty-three poems only "A chantar" by the Countess of Dia has survived with its original music. Like the works of other women troubadours, the text is remarkable for its candor:

Of things I must rather keep in silence I must sing: so bitter do I feel toward him whom I love more than anything. With him, my mercy and fine manners are in vain, my beauty, virtue and intelligence. For I have been tricked and cheated as if I were completely loathesome.

The performance is by Montserrat Figueras and Hesperion XX.

[MUSIC: "But above all, messenger, make him comprehend that too much pride has undone many men." "A chantar," by the Countess of Dia, performed by Montserrat Figueras and Hesperion XX]

Not all contributions by women have been in the way of writing melodies. Such is certainly the case with Christine de Pisan. She was born In 1364, educated by will of her father, the royal physician, married at fifteen, widowed at twenty-six, and thereafter supported her family by writing poems for the various noblemen and -women of France. Her poems must often have been set to music, and we have an example of one of her works set to music by one of the most famous composers of the fifteenth century, Gille Binchois. It is entitled "Deuil angoisseux," and seems likely to have been written on the death of her husband.

Anguish, mourning, uncontrolled passion, sorrow, despair, full of madness, endless languor and ill-omened life filled with weeping, anguish and torment, my heart is unhappy and lives on obscurely, my body wrapped in gloom and about to depart all the time and continually, if I cannot be cured or just die.

The performance is by Lucia Kerstens and Syntagma Musicum.

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It has been said that the Renaissance was a time of retrenchment for women in music, that they were not allowed to play even the kinds of roles that they had played in the Middle Ages. Well, one role which was still open to them, and which women performed with great vigor, was that of musical patron. Two of the women among the guests at Judy Chicago's Dinner Party played that role with abundant energy and success, Isabella d'Este, the Duchess of Mantua, and Elizabeth I, Queen of England. Isabella's contribution lies in the fostering of a native Italian musical art, at a time when the European musical world was dominated by Franco-Flemish composers and singers. In particular, she fostered the development of the frottola, which is recognized as an important forerunner of the madrigal. In fact, it might be said that without Isabella D'Este, the madrigal might have been slower in developing. That would have been to the chagrin of Elizabeth I, since the madrigal was an important musical form during her reign. In 1601, twenty-four of England's best composers recognized the nurturing role which Elizabeth played in the musical life of her nation, by publishing a collection of madrigals dedicated to her. It was called The Triumphs of Oriana. We willI hear, first, a frottola from the Court of Isabella d’Este, "L'amor, donna," by Giacomo Fogliano, performed by the Early Music Quartet; and, then, a madrigal from The Triumphs of Oriana, "All Creatures Now are Merry Minded," by John Bennet, performed by the Pro Cantione Antiqua of London.

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The last woman whose contribution to music we will be exploring today on Micrologus is Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. She was born about 1660 and, from early on, showed a prodigious talent for playing the harpsichord. When she was only ten years old, a Paris newspaper referred to her as "a marvel of our century." King Louis XIV was so impressed with her that he had her brought to the court to be educated. Under royal patronage, she composed numerous harpsichord pieces, chamber works, cantatas, and even the first opera known to have been composed by a woman. After her death in 1729, Le Parnasse françois, the "who's who" of France in the 18th century, ranked her as one of the three most outstanding composers of the age. We will listen to her "Rondeau," the final movement of her Second Suite for Harpsichord, performed here by Thurston Dart.

[MUSIC: The "Rondeau" from the Second Suite for Harpsichord by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, performed by Thurston Dart] concluding this all too brief exploration of the contribution of women to the world of Early Music, a program inspired by the exhibition in Cleveland in the summer of 1981 of Judy Chicago's Dinner Party.