An Evening at the Theater
Music for theatre and dance, London, 1680.
"An Evening at the Theater" recreates the musical part of a masque, as it might have been played in a London theater around 1680.
A court entertainment combining instrumental music, dance, theatre, song, and pantomime, the masque flourished in England from the beginning of the sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Complex polyphony, John Playford’s “country dance” and Scottish folk music, while in principle separate, all found parts in the same musical moment.
In the middle of the program, we have chosen to emphasize the originality of the anti-masque, a real comic interlude within the masque. Its function was to mock and even to parody the King or some other person of high rank by scenic and instrumental oddities, before returning to a more courteous level, thus showing the submission of subjects to their sovereign.
Works by Jacob Van Eyck, Nicolas Matteis, Matthew Locke, William Lawes, Tobias Hume, are interpreted there, as well as our own arrangements of dances by John Playford, the greatest publisher of the period.
Detailed program for concert organizers on demand.
Program with 4 to 7 musicians
Marion Fermé: recorders
Sandrine Dupé: baroque violin
Isabelle Brouzes: viola da gamba
Victorien Disse: theorbo, baroque guitar
Yvan Garcia: virginal
Nadia Bendjaballah: percussion
with Jeanne Zaepffel on the CD : soprano
in February 2020 we recorded our program
for RAMEE Label. Help us finance this project to receive the future CD.
This CD is supported by Adami
