opnames-renaissance-1-en

Onder een Linde Groen is an arrangement of the English folk song In a Garden Green. In concealed terms the song describes what lovers sometimes do when they are strolling in the woods. Completely in accordance with the customs of the times, nobody ever worried about copyrights, Vallet made an arrangement as well. The tune […]

Mal Simmes originally is an English folk dance titled Mal Simmes, Bal Anglois. Many composers of his day made an arrangement of this popular melody. I play the first section a little more freely, as a prelude. The repeated second section gets a slightly tighter approach. The recording was an exercise for an online recital

Slaep, soete Slaep is a lullaby indeed! However, it appears to originate from a comedy play in which the white hero suddenly awakes as Black Peter! Black Peter is the same traditional figure that is subject to a discrimination discussion in Holland, he is the servant of Sinterklaas and nowadays considered a representative of a

The title The Maids in Constrite translates as The Maids Quarrel. The piece depicts this in increasingly busy phrases. A single theme is worked out in divisions with increasingly smaller note values, so that you can hear the arguments in the last line. I deliberately started so slow here that I could keep the fast

An anonymous 16th century English lute piece. It is an adaptation of a folk song with variations about a jolly cobbler that was published in the Dowland Lute Book. With a somewhat higher pace it is sometimes difficult to keep up the Divisions.

The song is dedicated to the escapades of Sir Packington, a favorite and presumed lover of the English Queen Elizabeth I. The “Iron Lady” apparently had her people around her to make life a little more light-hearted and pleasant. I play two versions, the anonymous and Francis Cutting’s version. The latter forms a thoughtful middle

Kemp’s Jig is a hymn to the famous actor William Kempe (?? – 1603), one of the members of William Shakespeare’s theater company. In those days a Jig was a humorous encore to a play.

A traditional folk song in the Divisions that were customary in the English Renaissance. The piece is in the Dowland Lute Book. To end the piece well, I played the theme one more time afterwards.

Fortune, my Foe is a moving, melancholic melody that sings about the vagaries of fate. Tuning the G to F# makes the piece easier to play. However, it can also be done in the classic tuning.

This is an instrumental setting of a popular song by the Flemish composer Joachim van den Hove. I myself like to play particularly the second part at a faster pace after the somewhat stately introduction. I got that idea from a masterclass with Yves Storms.