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ENSEMBLE INFO

Ensemble Contact:

Email:

clairehoracek@gmail.com

2018

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Epitaph for a Green Lover CD launch tour
Linarol Consort of Viols and Héloïse Bernard

We are applying for a grant to help us with the expenses of delivering a series of concerts to celebrate the launch of our latest CD, Epitaph for a Green Lover (CRD Records) which brings to life exquisite chansons from the songbooks of Margaret of Austria.

5 Concerts:
May 8th Early Voices Wales Lleisiau Cynnar Cymru
September 12th St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh
September 26th Banbury Early Music Festival
October 10th Crowborough Arts
October 11th Folkestone Early Music

The Project
During our 2022 Continuo Foundation supported tour of music from the manuscripts of Margaret of Austria, it became clear that there was keen demand for a recording of the programme. After every performance of this beautiful and unrepresented music, the audience asked if we had made a recording; and in 2024 we did just that, helped by grants from Continuo Foundation, Angel Early Music and the Marchus Trust. We are now looking forward to taking the programme on the road again and excited to bring this stunning repertoire to live audiences around the UK, whilst promoting the physical and digital album.

Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, was a great patron of the arts who loved to dance and sing. But, above all, she loved her green parrot. Our programme’s title comes from the remarkable chanson Soubz ce tumbel with its tragic text by Margaret’s court poet, Jean Lemaire de Belges. In this song, we find a text drawn from de Belges’s Epitaphe de l’Amant Vert in which the amant vert (‘green lover’) refers to the beloved green parrot. This chanson, along with all the songs featured in our programme, come from the two extant chansonniers of Margaret of Austria, which are now housed in the Brussels Royal Library.

The programme transports the modern-day listener to Margaret of Austria’s court through music, allowing us to give insight into her character since some of her own poetry was set to music by her favourite musicians. The Linarol viols provide a uniquely rich, warm tone, perfectly complementing Héloïse Bernard’s exquisite and sensual voice, and allowing a dramatic approach rarely exploited in this type of repertoire. David Hatcher has imaginatively curated the repertoire’s instrumentation; the programme features recorders, viols and percussion, displaying the group’s diverse talents.

Audience quotes:
It was somewhere between perfect and sublime - if you could find a crack between the two that is. The balance of the voice and the viols in that space made it sound like one instrument..

This is clearly a programme much loved by the performers who do not shy away from the many varieties of melancholy or poignance!

It was also fascinating to see players switch instruments and to hear these and the music described with such good humour and warmth.

A really enchanting and uplifting evening.

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