13-Feb / Collaborations-Tis now dead Night CD / 0 COMMENTS

Just got back from a rehearsal with The Consort of Violls- the ensemble Earl Christy and I will perform with on Thursday at 20.15 at the Paleiskerk in The Hague. I’m very looking forward to this concert: ‘Tis now dead Night’ – A farewell to Henry Stuart, Prince of Wales, which is part Musica Antica da Camera series. We will perform very touching Jacobean lute songs that are rarely sung and played on stage, intertwined with Fantasies and Pavans- all written by composers that were connected to young prince Henry in some way. We will be playing the complete 7 songs from ‘Songs of Mourning’ by John Coprario (music) and Thomas Campion (lyrics), which were written in commemoration of his passing. Each of the first five songs is dedicated to one member of the royal family, the last two songs are dedicated to Great Britain and to The World.

 

Hearing these songs, one can understand that they were written with the intention to help heal the very specific suffering the different songs recipients were experiencing at the time, and bring them back to balance. Physicians at the time believed that grief to be an emotion which, if given free rein, could eventually result in sickness and death. All the songs from this collection are tailored precisely to their recipients’ needs. The “song – medicine” prescribed to the King, the father who lost his first son and heir, tackles completely different issues than the song prescribed to Great Britain, which has lost its future monarch, and might be in a state of turmoil. This connection between word and medicine makes sense, knowing that Thomas Campion was Prince Henry’s physician.

Click the Prince Henry’s photo to listen to the song “How like a golden Dream”, dedicated to Frederick V, Elector Palatine of the Rhine: