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Event
LeStrange VIols
LeStrange Viols plays William Cranford:
A Debut and a Premier
On Friday, October 23, 2015 at 8pm LeStrange Viols will celebrate the release of its new recording with a performance of music of William Cranford and his circle at Corpus Christi Church in New York City. The occasion will be New Yorkers' first opportunity to hear both this dynamic new ensemble and an extraordinary body of repertoire that is stunningly beautiful and virtually unknown.
LeStrange Viols records William Cranford:
A Debut and a Premier
LeStrange Viols and Olde Focus Recordings present the modern premier recording of nearly all of William Cranford's instrumental music, including the complete fantasias for 4, 5, and 6 viols, the monumental and virtuosic 6-part pavans ("Passamezzo" and "Quadran"), and Cranford's distinctive 5-part setting of the In nomine and playful variations on the well-known tune "Go from my window." LeStrange Viols' recording of the chamber music of William Cranford also marks the ensemble's recording debut, and is the first major single-composer release by an American viol consort in more than two decades.
Introducing LeStrange Viols
Kivie Cahn-Lipman, Douglas Kelley, Loren Ludwig, John Mark Rozendaal, James Waldo, and Zoe Weiss
Named after an important manuscript collection assembled by the seventeenth-century English nobleman Nicholas Lestrange, LeStrange Viols
brings together six top American viol players committed to crafting musical experiences filled with vigor, passion, and technical prowess. Inspired by the finely wrought masterpieces of the viol consort repertoire, LeStrange sculpts performances that are both subtle and virtuosic.
Before assembling in 2014 to record the modern premier of William Cranford's consort music, the musicians of LeStrange had already established themselves as a crack team of American consort players. Their many previous appearances together in diverse musical combinations and their experience in acclaimed American ensembles allow LeStrange to craft refined and vigorous performances of intricate gems of the consort repertory. Members of LeStrange Viols have been featured performers with ACRONYM, Amherst Early Music Festival, The Newberry Consort, Folger Consort, The King's Noyse, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Trio Settecento, The Oberlin Consort of Viols, Helios Opera, Quaver, Hesperus, Sonnambula, New York Consort of Viols, Parthenia, Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and Brandywine Baroque.
Introducing William Cranford
Little is known about the life of composer William Cranford (fl. 1630s) beyond his remarkable music for viol consort, a Renaissance string ensemble that attracted the greatest English composers from William Byrd to Henry Purcell. Cranford's musicby turns sonorous, expressive, quirky, and forward lookingrepresents some of finest surviving writing for the ensemble.
Like the great metaphysical and cavalier poetry of the period, Stuart-era consort music circulated almost exclusively in manuscripts passed from hand to hand among a small circle of devoted enthusiasts. Cranford's surviving consort music was collected in several manuscripts associated with an enthusiastic and prolific community of musicians centered around St. Paul's in London. The most significant sources are the LeStrange manuscripts, now housed at the British Library and a manuscript at Archibishop Marsh's Library in Dublin. Other important manuscript sources are held by the Bodleian and Christ Church libraries in Oxford, the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.
Cranford's music has more in common with the writings of John Donne and Robert Herrick than its mode of transmission. Like the poetry, this music combines ardor and passion with sweetness and surprise, leading the listener to unexpected realms of thought and feeling.
Cranford's fantasias reveal an astonishing breadth of internal contrasts and subtle use of an often strikingly modern-sounding harmonic palette. The seventeenth-century music-lover Dudley North wrote of being quite "taken with what hath proceeded from Mr. Cranford. . . . pieces mixed with gravity, majesty, honey-dew spirit, and variety."
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LocationCorpus Christi Church (View)
529 West 121st Street
New York, NY 10027
United States
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| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
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