Voice Trio: Medieval women in song

Sunday 1 December 2024 at 15:30

Voice Trio - Victoria Couper, Clemmie Franks, and Emily Burn - perform songs to celebrate women in medieval music as composers, icons, and narrators.

With sacred and secular songs from Italy, England, France, and Germany, Voice’s programme centres around the beautiful chant of St Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179), with musical works taken from her anthology Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations), many of which were inspired by intense visions that she referred to as the ‘lux vivens’ (living light).  In an entirely a cappella programme, the trio also present medieval songs about the ever-popular holy maiden St Mary - some reverent and devotional like William Lyons’ adaption of the 15th century carol Ecce Quod Natura to accommodate the lyrics of another carol, I sygn of a mayden, found (in the British Library's MS Sloane 2593, ff.10v–11) without music in the vernacular English -  others rousing and lively, such as Laude novella sia cantata, a Laude spirituali (literally ‘spiritual praises’) from the Cortona Laudario (Italy, 13th century), a type of praise song that formed the main part of Italy’s medieval secular monophony.

Today’s programme also includes songs (two of which are found in the 13th century French, Montpellier Codex) exploring the more secular subjects of desire, sisterhood, and the recurring theme of unattainable love so often expounded in medieval Europe.

This music continues to inspire today, and Voice Trio will perform new works by contemporary female composers Liz Dilnot Johnson, Moira Smiley, and Stevie Wishart, whose compositions are influenced by these medieval women.