Programs

Voices from the Island Sanctuary:
Ecclesiastical Singers in Paris (1180-1230)

New Year’s Day

In the days following Christmas, a number of feasts were celebrated at Notre Dame during which various lower groups in the cathedral hierarchy (priests, deacons, subdeacons, and even the choirboys) had their own day to assume full power in the church and control the entire operation of the liturgy. This ancient tradition, which was probably linked to pagan winter-solstice practices, was a harmless and benevolent moment of lightness in the liturgical year; but by the late 12th century the Parisian celebrations began to get out of control, with incidents of blasphemy in the church, clerics dressing as women, fighting, and indecent displays of youthful (male) energy. The Feast of the Circumcision, on New Year’s Day – which came to be known as the Festum Fatuorum (Feast of Fools) – belonged to the subdeacons, a group of underpaid, overworked young men (mostly former choirboys who were now the principal daily vocal soloists in the choir) who were particularly notorious for their naughty songs and scandalous pranks in the church (many involving the cantor’s “rod” – baculus – a symbol of authority in the choir). When a Papal legate complained about their behaviour in 1198, the Bishop of Paris finally had to issue an official reprimand, and these raucous festivities were severely curtailed, at least temporarily. In their place a number of new musical compositions were provided for the boys and young men to sing, as an attempt to channel their youthful energy into serious rehearsals and the propriety of carefully-managed celebrations, instead of the spontaneous revels which formerly marked this feast.

Texts

Annus renascitur

The year is reborn! Let us be joyful now! The old is cast out, and the new Adam is born. Let us rejoice at the year renewed! The baculus is passed around… a new sun rises … the clouds depart! Let us be joyful now!

Novus annus hodie

Today a new year urges us to begin joyful praises… therefore, let us celebrate this annual feast, loosing the chains of sin, giving drink to the thirsty, healing the sick with this medicine, as joyfully we sing as a memorial:

[refrain]: Ha! Ha! He! He who truly wishes to sing should make praise with three gifts: with his mouth, heart and good works he should labour, so that he might live and please God!

He is worthy of memory whose end is joyful, worthy of great praise whose kindness is without end, who created the heavens, the earth and the sea. Thus he ruled the world with his Word, and was concerned to enrich man, to command his subjects, and according to his will give him immortality.

[refrain]: Ha! Ha! He!...

Program Archive

Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper

Upcoming Concerts

19 June 2010
Montalbâne Festival, Germany
Fragments for the End of Time

24 September 2010
Cité de la Musique, Paris
The Rheingold Curse

See full concert schedule

News

Early Music America Annual Award

Early Music America, the national service organization for the field of early music, has announced the winners of its 2010 awards recognizing outstanding accomplishments in early music. Benjamin Bagby will receive the Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. The awards will be presented at the EMA Annual Meeting and Awards Ceremony at the Berkeley Early Music Festival on 11 June 2010.

Visions of Paradise

In September 2009 a new film about the life of Hildegard von Bingen, directed by Margarethe von Trotta and starring Barbara Sukowa, was released in Germany. More

Interview with Benjamin Bagby

WNYC, New York Public Radio, aired an interview with the ‘Beowulf’ performer, B. Bagby. Listen to the show

Beowulf on DVD

Benjamin Bagby’s legendary performance of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf (part I) recorded live in Helsingborg, Sweden.
Visit the Beowulf website