Christ Church Cathedral
De Juer et de Baler / To Play and Dance
Artists: Norbert Rodenkirchen & Pierre Hamon, medieval flutes and percussion.
Pre-Concert Chat: 07:00pm with Pierre Hamon and Norbert Rodenkirchen hosted by Suzie LeBlanc.
Runtime: Approximately 70 min, no interval
Delight in the playful and witty tunes of the medieval estampie, a dance form that flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. Flutists Pierre Hamon and Norbert Rodenkirchen accompany this programme with original compositions and charming improvisations, performed on replicas of instruments from the Middle Ages.
Medieval instrumental music in the form of double verses, as described by Johannes de Grocheo in 13th century Paris as stantipes (estampie) and ductia, had already existed in oral tradition for centuries. A formally uniform instrumental music of the Middle Ages had developed over the course of several centuries in parallel with certain vocal forms. Along the lines of sequence, planctus, lai, nota, the estempida had developed. The first notated examples of purely instrumental music from the 13th century are therefore not first attempts, but rather the results of a long creative tradition in a continuous context.
The two flutists Pierre Hamon and Norbert Rodenkirchen have developed a duo program that traces the genre of the estampie, both dance-like and contemplative, from its earliest stages to the well-documented period of the 13th and 14th century. A program with new “up to date” transcriptions and reconstructions of medieval instrumental music, complemented by original compositions and improvisations of the two friends.
Pierre Hamon from Paris, one of the most internationally renowned flutists of medieval music (with Jordi Savall, among others), known as co-founder of the ensemble “Alla francesca”, leader of the Machaut projects with Marc Mauillon and as professor at the CNDSMD of Lyon, meets the Cologne flutist Norbert Rodenkirchen, known for his decades of work with Sequentia and the Ensemble Dialogos.
Click here for programme notes
Generously sponsored by Dorothy Jantzen and Elaine Adair
PROGRAMME
Noeoeane – Improvisation
Lai du fou – Improvisation
Almifona – Melodia longissima
La route d´Alexandre – Improvisation
Estampie C´an feme ce fie
Le mystère de l’azur – Improvisation
Notula De juer et de baler
Estempida Pus chan era
Canconeta Tedescha
Norbert Rodenkirchen, medieval flute & percussion
Norbert Rodenkirchen studied flute at the Staatliche Musikhochschule Köln with Hans Martin Mueller and Günther Höller. He has been the regular flute player of the internationally renowned medieval ensemble Sequentia since 1996, and also works regularly with the French-Croatian ensemble Dialogos directed by Katarina Livljanic. With both ensembles he has been invited to numerous international festivals. Norbert Rodenkirchen additionally collaborates intensively in a medieval duo project with the acclaimed singer Sabine Lutzenberger.
He is also much in demand as a composer of music for theater and film, as well as a producer for CD projects. His main partner in modern music is the violinist and composer Albrecht Maurer. Norbert Rodenkirchen as served as artistic director of the concert series “Schnuetgen Konzerte – Musik des Mittelalters” in the medieval museum of Cologne. Additionally he has given workshops on medieval instrumental improvisation at renowned academies like Mozarteum Salzburg, Musikhochschule Koeln (Cologne), Schola Cantorum Basiliensis or Conservatory of Lyon, a.o.. In 2012 he released his third solo CD Hameln Anno 1284 / Medieval flute music / On the trail of the Pied Piper and was invited with that program to many outstanding festivals and early music series in Boston, Vancouver, Oslo, Paradyz, Copenhagen, Moscow, and elsewhere.
www.norbertrodenkirchen.org
Pierre Hamon, medieval flute & percussion
Originally self-taught, Pierre Hamon discovered medieval music, thanks to the recordings of David Munrow, when he was a teenager . Later he went on to advanced studies with Walter Van Hauwe on the recorder, and became a disciple of Hariprasad Chaurasia for Hindustani Music and bansuri flute.
He is co-founder and co-director of Alla Francesca, with which he has recorded around fifteen Cds and has appeared regularly with Jordi Savall since 1995. His repertoire ranges from the twelfth to the twenty-first century, and his curiosity has also led him to study various etchnic wind instruments and their traditional repertoire.
Since 2007 , he is particularly involved in the study, performance and recording of Guillaume de Machaut‘s Work. Besides, his perpetual search for the fundamental gestures and sounds of humanity leads him to the fascinating universe of pre-Columbian flutes, civilizations and ameridian traditions, in connection with Nature and the songs of birds.
He is the composer and director of the original soundtracks for the animated film “Pachamama”, nominates for the 2019th Césars (now on Netflix) as well as the short animated film “Jehanne” by Atam Rasho (now on youtube).
He is a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon and since September 2022 at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève, and is regularly invited by the leading early music institutions such as the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the Royal Academy of Music of London, The Music Conservatory of Amsterdam…
