Renaissance Ensemble

SUNDAY, JULY 11 FROM 1:00-2:00PM

SUNDAY, JULY 11 at 1:00PM

Assembly Hall Auditorium

The Marsh Mountain Consort players perform classical Renaissance works on recorders from soprano to contrabass and violas da gamba.

This unique concert will illustrate Renaissance works, most of which by the “end of the nineteenth century had completely disappeared. Where what little evidence there was lay unrecognized in musical scores, treatises, tutor-books and in the qualified opinions of contemporary musicians.”

For over 40 years, the Marsh Mountain Consort has been assembling each Tuesday to recreate early Renaissance music. The ensemble of working and retired professionals are bound by the love of euphony and a passion for perfect playing through the support of like-minded musicians.

Tom Johnson, one of the charter members, recruited Ruth Seib and Marci McClive when he was just getting started playing recorders. Prior to that he always played in bands from middle school through college where he marched with the Penn State Blue Band. He recalls that “the music and camaraderie of the consort were infectious” and helped recruit additional members over time.

Ruth Huebner Seib is the Consort organizer and director and on the Board of Directors of the American Recorder Society, an association of members that promotes education and support for small groups. She was drawn to the complexity of the rhythms and harmonies in Renaissance polyphony. One of the unique aspects she enjoys is that the music can be played and enjoyed by small groups of amateur musicians, generally playing one-to-a-part. Professionals certainly do it better, she notes, but enjoyment is well within the grasp of amateurs. She has encouraged the development of skills among original and new consort members through amassing a huge library of scores, new genres of music, organizing workshops, and dedicated practice. She adopted the viola da gamba as a regular instrument. The consort now has 3 gamba players.

Marci, another charter member of the consort, attended Hiram College. While there, an early music faculty member mentored students with musical interests among those who were unable to participate in orchestra on instruments they had played in high school. McClive owned a tenor recorder and was “smitten” with this unexpected opportunity. Recently, she has also learned to play small bagpipes which can be incorporated into the repertoire.

Today, there are a growing number of young professional musicians who focus on Early Music, according to Ruth. An indication of its growing popularity is that over 20 colleges and universities currently offer early music programs and a myriad of annual workshops and summer programs.

Interestingly, a growing “pool of amateurs playing early music is largely, but not entirely, composed of people in middle age and older,” Ruth points out. “Many have played some other musical instrument earlier in life.”

The consort also features some unusual instruments: "Great" and "Contra" bass recorders and various sizes of Viola da Gamba played by Dan and Carol Muss. Dan Muss has played recorders, guitar, and other instruments in his life. He joined the Consort many years ago adding his great skill on bass, great bass and contrabass recorders. Encouraged by the consort members, Carol Muss, who plays piano and harpsichord, learned to play recorder and later also introduced the viola da gamba to the group.

Jeanne Myers joined the Consort in 2010 and relates that “My experience with early music came at first from singing in church, small consort groups, and the London Ionian Singers. Playing a recorder came late in life when my voice failed. Playing with a group is such an inspirational and enjoyable experience!”

The newest member of the consort, Mike Broderick, is a violin/keyboard musician who has played throughout the Mid-Atlantic states, at the Kennedy Center, and in Europe as a founding member of Aurora Celtic. He is considered an expert performer of Appalachian music.

“I got interested in early music after hearing a Marsh Mountain Consort performance at St Mark's Lutheran church.,” said Mike. “I was intrigued by the calm, other-worldly quality of the music and the close ensemble playing looked like fun. As a violin player, I was drawn to the viols and wanted to give it a try.”

The group has played for many community events over the years. Audiences have a special interest in the development of music over time and curiosity about original instruments and techniques as showcased in their Renaissance and early Baroque programs.

The recorder is considered an accessible instrument, and unlike other woodwinds, does not require a muscular embouchure or fussing with reeds. All sizes are inexpensive, as instruments go, and plastics have much improved in quality over time making for an inexpensive bass recorder, as an example. After giving it a try for a small investment, players can invest in higher quality instruments when they are ready to advance.

The viol is a more difficult instrument to learn, according to Ruth and Carol who now play the instrument but began on a recorder. At first glance it appears similar to the violin family; however, there are significant differences. Viols, the most esteemed bowed instruments of the late Renaissance, were only gradually displaced by the violin family. Viols differ from violins chiefly in shape, in number of strings and tuning, and in having fretted necks. All viols are played in an upright position between the knees or on the legs ("gamba" means "leg"), and the bow is held palm upward. The sound is less brilliant and quieter than that of the violin family of instruments.

Chamber music for a consort of four to six viols was composed during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and solo works for the bass viol were being played until nearly the end of the eighteenth century.

As was common in the Renaissance, music was often originally written for instruments alone, as well as pieces written for singers, or mixed groups.

“We play many such pieces scored for recorders, but I can say that while playing music on recorder that was originally written for viol, I wanted to learn viol in order to be able to play that music as originally intended,” Ruth recalls.

Early music, as it’s known today, fell out of favor in the late 1700s, but was revived in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Dolmetsch.

It would be a mistake to think that an interest in early music was particularly remarkable in England at this time. J. A. (John Alexander) Fuller Maitland (1856-1936) described the situation at Cambridge, where he was a student in the 1870s, as follows:

“The professorial lectures which often admitted the existence of madrigals, virginal music, and such things, nearly always took it for granted that there was no beauty such as could appeal to modern ears so that the respect with which we were encouraged to approach them was purely due to their antiquity.”

In 1885, at the huge International Inventions Exhibition in The Albert Hall galleries, [there was] a display of and a series of concerts including [authentic] instruments… The Musical Times commented, “some of the effects were beautiful as well as curious, while others were only curious.”

“We are also fortunate that there are people who enjoy looking at images of original sources of music from the Renaissance era and transcribing these into modern notation,” Ruth shares. “There is a huge collection of freely available pieces in several internet repositories, and of course still more pieces available from traditional music publishers.”

Composers have also been writing new music for recorder and have also published somewhat anachronistic, but still enjoyable, arrangements for recorder of music written in the classical and romantic periods.

It is agreed by all Marsh Mountain Consort players that playing consort instruments is a great way to get back into music for someone who misses it and to explore Renaissance musical literature.