AGENDA
COME ON! ACTION!
FESTIVAL
FRI 12.02.10 / 20.00
In the Renaissance, musicians received instruction at the courts and churches where they worked. An important aspect of their study was contrapunto, the art of combining several melody lines and bringing them into perfect harmony. Often this ingenious principle was practised by enhancing an existing song with notes of longer duration (a 'cantus firmus') with melodious second voices. Experienced musicians could even enhance a cantus firmus ‘on sight’. This improvised contrapunto (or ‘contrapunto alla mente’) is at the basis of countless compositions on paper. The Huelgas Ensemble and BL!NDMAN [sax] explore 15th and 16th century music in which secular and religious 'standards' prop up a creative polyphony of whimsical twists and hallucinatory repetitions. Composers such as Dufay, Palestrina and Agricola are coupled with 20th and 21st century 'aleatoric' music or chance music.
