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Boombox Virelai (1992) |
For countertenor, 2 tenors, bass - c. 9'
Commissioned by The Hilliard Ensemble with additional funding from South East Arts, UK.
First performance: 12 September, 1992, The St. Barnabas Festival, St. Barnabas Church, Ranmore, Sussex. The Hilliard Ensemble.
In writing a new work for The Hilliard Ensemble I wanted to combine elements of early music, for which they are well known, with music I feel could only have been created in the late 20th century. Boombox Virelai was inspired by some street musicians I saw in downtown New York rapping to a small crowd in Washington Square. A tall African-American laid out the ‘rap’ while his pals made instrumental-like sounds with their mouths, hands and feet, imitating a ‘boombox’ (portable cassette player). As I listened I was struck by a kinship to their distant European brothers- the Jongleurs, troubadours and Trouvères of 13th century France. The message on this occasion was cruder and more direct, but still an expression of those same, age-old problems of life, love and death.
As I began work on the new piece I looked a numerous old scores and illustrations. I found several early paintings of Troubadours/Trouvères standing with a lute like instrument or rebec, but I knew the songs survive only as melodic lines and verse. A mystery surrounds how, what, or even if the virelai (13th/14th century song) was accompanied. Since no one really knows what happened in a Trouvère song, the accompaniment I have provided seems to me as appropriate as any.
The French text which begins the work is the original, anonymous 13th century Trouvère verse, Or la truix. I composed the English verses which follow, inspired, I should point out, by the well-known Medieval code "that no song should be like an earlier one", although 'very slight changes were sometimes considered sufficient to avoid breach' (Gustave Reese: Music in the Middle Ages p 214). I feel fairly certain my treatment of this Trouvère melody and text avoids any artistic "breach" of my Medieval colleague’s work.
Anonymous 13th/14th century Trouvère text:
"Or la truix trop dure te, voir, voir!
A ceux k’elle est simple te.
Trop por outrecuidies me taius,
cant je cudoie estre certains de ceux
ke n’a verai des mois, oix, oix!
C’est ceu ke plus me ble ce.
Or la truix trop dure te, voir, voir!
A ceux k’elle est simple te."
Stephen Montague 20th century text:
I find it hard to woo her.
Indeed, because she is a simple weed.
Too much discomfort, oh, how I hurt!
I’ve found my lover’s virtue dirt.
Alas, ‘tis that which mostly hurts
to find my lover Hell-for-leather flirts!
Today, she kissed me, called me Ron.
Alas, poor me, my name is John!
My lover loves, everyone but me.
This kind of love is misery:
Last night I kissed her.
It all went wrong.
I closed my eyes,
and she was gone!
© 1992 Stephen Montague