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stella serena program order Ave maris stella Hymn, plainchant Stella splendens in monte Llibre vermell, 14th c. Ave, tuos benedic Salve mater redemptoris/Salve lux/ Salve spina/Salve sancta parens Conductus, Oxford, 13th c. Motet, Worcester, 13th c. Novi sideris Ave maris stella Conductus, Notre Dame, 12th c. Conductus, Las Huelgas, 13th c. O Maria virgo pia Salve, mater misericordie Sequence, Worcester, 13th c. Rondellus, Oxford, 13th c. INTERMISSION Polorum regina Llibre vermell O virgo splendens Salve virgo tonantis solium Caça, Llibre vermell Conductus, Oxford, 13th century Stillat in stellam radium Stella serena Conductus, Notre Dame, 13th c. Conductus, Notre Dame, 13th c. Virgo Maria, patrem parit/O stella/ Flos genuit/Virgo Maria, flos Motet, Cambridge, 14th c. This program lasts approximately 60 minutes plus intermission. program notes What is more awe-inspiring than the starry night sky? A sea of darkness, made magical with the twinkling of millions upon millions of stars. The sky above is not only a source of beauty and utter wonderment, but before modern times it served to guide sailors, navigators, astronomers, and the like. The night sky was a tool. Yet in the medieval world, the heavenly canopy was typically considered to be rotating around the earth, God ordained the heavens to serve those living on earth. And recall, Galileo’s heliocentric theory did not erupt until the early 17th century, well before the time in which most of this program’s music is drawn. That said, the Catholic Church was a vital body operating throughout the entirety of Europe during the Middle Ages. Also flourishing during this time was the cult of Mary, in which veneration of the Virgin Mother became an intrinsic aspect of everyday life, especially within monastic and spiritual communities. Mary was viewed as intercessor between mankind and God, a connection between heaven and earth. As such, Mary was often compared to a star in the night sky, as an omnipresent guide and guardian. Prayers and texts to Mary commonly bequest that she work on our behalf. There is no shortage of repertoire that is related to or in praise of Mary. However, this program creates a focus upon the particular image of Mary as a guiding star, exploring the connection of the human spirit to the celestial God-realm via this unique intercessor. The opening hymn, Ave maris stella, is our starting point. An ancient song believed to have originated in the 9th century, in which we have one of the earliest images of Mary as “star of the sea,” a common theme in referring to Mary up until this day, its origins most likely related to the prayers of the faithful for safe travels upon the sea. The remainder of the program is devoted to the music of Spain, England, and France, in which we have chosen a variety of styles that represent some of the various compositional forms during the medieval period which maintain our particular focus. First we turn to Spain, a vast intersection of cultures, faiths, and landscapes. In Catalonia there is a famous pilgrimage route towards the mountaintop monastery of Montserrat in the far east of that country. Montserrat was established in the 11th century and grew to become an important shrine site. A fire in 1811 destroyed much of the contents of the monastic library, but an important manuscript survived, the Llibre vermell (or “Red Book,” named for its more contemporary red velvet cover). The music dates from the 14th century, and it contains only ten songs in all, composed for use by the devout pilgrim. Stella splendens and Polorum regina, two strophic songs, have a strong rhythmic impulse and repetitive melodic material well-suited to a processional, possibly employed during a walking journey. O virgo splendens is in canon form, or caça, and underlays a a prayer to the Virgin in the final stretch of their journey, as they witness the splendor of Montserrat atop its rocky cliff. Another piece from a Spanish source, Ave maris stella, is a three-voice conductus found in the Codex de las Huelgas. The Las Huelgas monastery is located in the city of Burgos. Still housed there today, the Codex, compiled during the early 14th century, is a seemingly humble manuscript featuring a variety of differing musical styles. It features music composed both in Spain and at Notre Dame, and is notable for this Parisian influence, most likely via travelers along the camino, en route to Santiago de Compostela on the far western shore. Ave maris stella is one such example of a French import, and the long and intricate melismatic writing stirs up the image of waves upon the endless sea, a fascinating intersection of text and music. Notre Dame was undoubtedly an enormous influence upon the musical cultures throughout the entire continent. It is in Paris that musical styles evolved, from chant to conductus, conductus to motet, and so on. The conductus is a polyphonic work in which two or more voices sing with the same rhythm and text underlay, mostly in a homophonic style. Novi sideris and Stillat in stellam radium are both two-voice conductus. The first, joyful and exuberant, relates to Jesus, seen as the ray of light emitted from a new star, whilst the latter is a placid setting devoted to Mary. A three-voice conductus setting, Stella serena, is a simple and unassuming text which takes on complex and technically-challenging melodic lines, revealing the craft within this seemingly simple artform. The conductus style also flourished in the great monastic centers of England. As it happened, many of these compositions were not preserved in any careful way throughout the tumultuous history of that island, and thus they come to us as fragments, scraps, or in the flyleaves (front and back pages of a book) of other manuscripts. That said, what remains of the compositions from this time and place create an entirely unique sound-world. The two-voice conductus O Maria virgo pia is a spare, simple devotional text setting, employing the tools of consonance and dissonance by interweaving voices in happy melodic confusion. The English mastered the harmonic style of moving in parallel thirds, creating a musical meditation of sorts. In the three-voice setting of Ave tuos benedic, the voices often are given extended melismatic passages, although some rely on short, simple statements of text with melodic flourishes as heard in Salve virgo tonantis solium. The English composers of conductus added some playful touches, heard in the rondellus sections of Salve, mater misericordie. The conductus musical form was the precursor to the motet, a form which saw its beginnings in the early 13th century in the school of Notre Dame and became a vehicle for composers to craft incredibly complex linguistic and musical artforms. In the early motet, two or three upper voices, each with individually set texts (quadrumplum, triplum, motetus), are placed above an elongated section of liturgical chant (or tenor) in a strict rhythmic mode. We have chosen two English examples for this program, Salve mater redemptoris and Virgo Maria, patrem parit, in which four voices join together in various configurations. Salve mater is in the traditional motet style, in which three voices move freely above the fourth voice, which sings an elongated tenor. The later motet Virgo Maria is a witness to musical evolution, in which all four voices have been set with four unique texts. A fascinating aspect of this work is the relation of the two upper voices and the two lower voices; the upper voices both have texts conjuring the image of Mary as a star, yet the the lower voices refer to Mary as blossom, flower, another prominent image of Mary during this period. Allison Mondel