Monday 12 July 2010
8.00pm - 9.15pm (no interval)

In The Gallery, Harewood House

This intimate concert will be a semi-staged dance and music performance held in the sumptuous surroundings of the Gallery at Harewood House.

Although the daily, weekly, and monthly rites and prayers and the yearly liturgical cycle are all very characteristic aspects of Jewish existence, the moments marking life’s transitions, the celebrations of the rites of passage that link the individual to family, community and history, are equally as important.  And of all of these transitional moments, none is more joyous than marriage.

The frequent references to Jewish musicians’ being hired for weddings show that it was probably one of their major sources of income.  They often played for Christian marriages, just as Christian musicians participated in Jewish ones.  Indeed, a good deal of our documentation is in the form of complaints or constraints: this intermingling was frowned upon by religious and civic authorities alike.  When these mixed festivities included dancing (as they almost always did) opposition became stronger, because of the opportunities for physical contact between Jewish and Christian men and women.

Condoned or condemned, dance remained an important aspect of celebration, and one of the most important dance masters of the Renaissance was of Jewish origin: Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro.   Guglielmo’s writings demonstrate a solid humanistic background, at the same time supplying more practical information, for example how to execute steps, or instructions for often intricate choreographies.  Its certainly plausible that the balli and bassadanze featured there were danced, played and sung for festive occasions.

The program takes its name from a 16th Century wedding piyyut written by Samuele Archivolti, famed rabbi and scholar.  “Kinnor” is a reference to the instrument played by King David: although the name means “violin” in modern Hebrew, it has represented a variety of stringed instruments, usually used to accompany the voice, throughout the ages.  The song Kehi Kinnor is just one example of the sizeable pan-European repertoire of wedding songs (“Kale-Lid”  in Yiddish) that have come down to us in a myriad of sources, written in Judeo-German, Giudeo-Italiano, Sephardic Spanish and Hebrew.  Marriage, the magical act where two families are united at the same time as a new one is founded, has been a cause for celebration at practically every time in practically every culture.   Accounts of marriages and dancing, payment records for musicians, and the many examples of wedding songs that have come down to us in Renaissance sources prove the importance that marriage, and its celebration, had in the Jewish community, reflecting both the universal nature of life cycle observances, and the substantial role they play in Jewish life and thought.

Ticket includes a glass of wine on arrival.

For further details and booking, please contact The National Centre for Early Music directly by phone on 01904 658338, email or on their website.

 

Ensemble Lucidarium are:

Bruna Gondoni, Marco Bendoni: dancers
Gloria Moretti, Enrico Fink: voice
Viva Biancaluna Biffi: voice and viola d’arco
Avery Gosfield, Marco Ferrari: Renaissance wind instruments
Francis Biggi: colascione, cetra, lute
Massimiliano Dragoni: hammer dulcimer, percussion
Elisabetta Benfenati: Renaissance guitar

Adult:	£20.00
Senior Citizen:	£17.00
Child:	£17.00
Student:	£17.00