Près de votre oreille | House Program | December 8, 2024

Près de votre oreille
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2024 AT 2:30 PM
THE
ISABEL
AT 10

PERFORMERS
Anaïs Bertrand, mezzo soprano
Nicolas Kuntzelmann, counter tenor
François-Olivier Jean, tenor
Cyril Costanzo, bass
Simon Waddell, lute and cittern
Ronan Khalil, harpsichord
Marion Martineau, viola de gamba
Robin Pharo, viola de gamba and conductor
PROGRAM
Alfonso Ferrabosco II (c. 1575-1628) - Ayres (1609)
Like Hermit poore
Robert Jones (1577-1617) - A Musicall Dreame (1609)
Lie down poor heart
Thomas Ford (1580-1648) - Musicke of Sundrie Kindes (1607)
A Pavin, Sir Richard Westons delight
Robert Jones (1577-1617) - A Musicall Dreame (1609)
If in this Flesh
Michael Cavendish (c. 1565-1628) - Ayres in Tabletorie to the lute (1598)
Wandring in this place
John Dowland (1563-1626) - The First booke of songes or Ayres (1597)
Go Crystal teares
Alfonso Ferrabosco II (c. 1575-1628)
Almain II
Thomas Ford (1580-1648) - Musicke of Sundrie Kindes (1607)
How shall I then discribe my love
John Dowland
Farewell fantaisie
Alfonso Ferrabosco II (c. 1575-1628)
Coranto I

Philipp Rosseter - A book of ayres (1601)
When Laura Smiles
Robert Jones (1577-1617) - The first booke of Songes (1600)
What if I seeke for love
Thomas Ford (1580-1648) - Musicke of Sundrie Kindes (1607)
Not full twelve yeeres twice tolde
John Dowland (1563-1626) - The First booke of songes or Ayres (1597)
Can she excuse my wrongs
Robert Jones (1577-1617) - A Musicall Dreame (1609)
Once did I serve a cruel heart
Thomas Ford (1580-1648) - Musicke of Sundrie Kindes (1607)
A Pavin, M Maines Choice
Thomas Campion (1567- 1620) - The first booke of airs (1613)
Never wether-beaten saile
Robin Pharo
Réversibilité, Chanson pour 4 voix et guitare sur un poème de Charles Baudelaire
ABOUT THIS PERFORMANCE
Blessed Echoes was conceived by Robin
Pharo in 2018 during work on the Près de
votre oreille ensemble’s first CD, Come
Sorrow, centred around the Elizabethan
tradition of accompanying viola da gamba
with a singer. More specifically, inspiration
came from a collection of Songs with Lute
and Lyra-viol by Robert Jones, which brings
together some of the most beautiful works
published during that period, and pays
homage to the great 17th century English
musical tradition, the Lute Song.
As Pharo worked on this program, he
immersed himself in the contemporary
posterity of some of these songs,
embarking upon a journey in time to the
golden age of Elizabethan theatre and
music. Between 1597
and 1615, countless collections of Lute
Songs appeared. The texts of these works
are incredibly rich. Although it is often
spiritual and ‘existentialist’ in style,
Elizabethan poetry can also be bawdy. The
texts set to music are often written by the
composers themselves, but they can also
come from poems written by famous
playwrights such as Ben Jonson and
William Shakespeare, or from collections
such as The Old & The New Arcadia,
written by Sir Philip Sydney. Although the
composition of these songs is sometimes
very complex, the scope this gives to the
musicians to depict the world in a secular
setting gives this repertoire a popular and
intimate quality which contributed to its
success.

Some of these works are powerfully
influenced by the art of the Italian madrigal,
where the techniques of counterpoint reign,
but the Elizabethan song has its own
identity, often alternating between
horizontal treatment of the voices and the
vertical composition which is closer to our
idea of a song. Officially, the first collection
presenting this type of work was composed
by John Dowland and published in London
in 1597, at the end of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth I, who died in 1603 and was
succeeded by James I.
In reality, the art of singing to a lute
accompaniment had existed for much
longer. The First booke of Songes or Ayres
composed by John Dowland nevertheless
marks the beginning of an important era for
English song. In the shadow of John
Dowland’s masterpieces lie other treasures of
Elizabethan and Jacobean song for one, two,
three or four voices, still unknown or littleknown.
It is this repertoire that the Près de
votre oreille ensemble wishes to present
today, with the typical scoring of the period:
including of course the Renaissance lute and
the viola da gamba, but also the virginal, a
keyboard with plucked strings similar to the
harpsichord, played by Queen Elizabeth I ;
and the cittern (a metal-stringed instrument
of the lute family).
ABOUT PRÈS DE VOTRE OREILLE
In 2017, Robin Pharo officially created the
ensemble Près de votre oreille on the
occasion of the Festival of Early Music in
Timisoara, Romania, around a program
devoted to the work for two viols by Marin
Marais and Descent of Orpheus to the
Underworld by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
aesthetic of the Renaissance, in which the
ensemble Près de votre oreille draws part of its
identity and an inexhaustible source of
beauty, as well as the passion to rediscover a
niche repertoire, represents a wonderful
challenge for an ensemble immersed in a
contemporary society.
The ensemble has performed in prestigious
places in France such as Midsummer festival in
Hardelot, Les Musicales de Normandie, Lille
Opera, Grévin Museum theater, Athénée
théâtre Louis-Jouvet, la Scala Paris, Périgord
Noir festival, le Château de Lunéville, les
Rencontres Musicales de Vézelay, Sablé festival
baroque festival in Tarentaise and abroad, the
Nasz Telemann festival in Poland, La Folia
festival in Switzerland, the Max festival and
Rencontres Musicales du Hainaut in Belgium.
In 2024, ensemble Près de votre oreille will
perform at Ambronay festival, Lanvellec festival
and abroad at Warsaw Philharmonic in Poland,
at La Valette baroque festival in Malta and in
Canada, at salle Bourgie in Montreal, at Early
Music in Vancouver and at the Isabel Bader
Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston.
In 2023, Près de votre oreille had been in
residence at La Cité de la Voix in Vézelay for the
creation of a chamber opera, Les vies ordinaires
d'Anaïs, based on an original text by author
Milena Scergo and composed by Fabien
Touchard. In 2024, the Près de votre oreille
ensemble will record for Scala Music Label his
album Lighten mine eies, and will be based in
Nouvelle-Aquitaine, in the Limousin.
The association Près de votre oreille has
produced five discs, L'Anonyme Parisien
(Paraty, 2016), Come Sorrow (Paraty, 2019), Suite
d'un Goût Etranger (Château de Versailles
Spectacles, 2021), Blessed Echoes (Paraty, 2023)
and The Waves (Scala Music, 2023), as well as
new compositions and arrangements of
melodies composed by Claude Debussy,
Gabriel Fauré and Nadia Boulanger.
Since its creation, the activities of the
ensemble focus on contemporary music and
the exploration of European vocal and
instrumental repertoires of the Renaissance
and the Baroque period (especially those of
the golden age of the Tudors, which offers an
incredible field of discovery). The musical