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Ensemble Dialogos; Ensemble Dialogos – Swithun: A Medieval Miracle Play; Christel Boiron; Clara Coutouly; Caroline Gesret
Ensemble Dialogos
Katarina Livljanić (director and vocalist)
Christel Boiron (vocalist)
Clara Coutouly (vocalist)
Caroline Gesret (vocalist)
One of Dialogos’s favourite repertoires, early medieval polyphony from Winchester, is at the origin of this programme. Through the voice of Wulfstan the Cantor, it follows the path of a penitent man haunted by his visionary or terrifying dreams, trying to escape from three raging Furies, wild like wolves, and finally finding salvation from Swithun, saint of all miracles.
“Ms. Livljanic enacted the ancient drama with splendidly pure singing, urgent narration, a penetrating gaze and expressive hands. (…) almost startlingly modern and metaphysical at times.” – The New York Times
Programme
Swithun! One saint, three Furies and a thousand miracles from Winchester around 1000
Regem regum dominum
Two-part invitatory, Winchester Troper
Aelfeah adest, Ordbirhtus adest, Wulfsinus et Aelfric
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Pax huic domui
Processional antiphon, Paris, BNF, ms. 943, 10th c.
Magna miracula
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Et licet extremus hominum
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Os ky hereos. Statuit ei dominus
Troped introit, Winchester Troper
Alma fuit vicina dies
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Gloriosus vir sanctus Swithunus
Two-part responsory, Winchester Troper
Cumque dies eadem benedicta
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
In pace in idipsum
Antiphon, Worcester Cathedral, Music Library, ms 160, 1″th c.
Þa swefna beoð wynsume
Aelfric of Winchester, Life of saint Swithun
Qui post evigilans
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Auxilium, domine
Alphabetic hymn in acrostic «De Sancto Swithuno»
Wulfstan of Winchester: text, Rouen, BM 1385, 10th c., melodic reconstruction: K. Livljanic
Sed cum nulla virum feritas
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Ecce vir prudens Swithunus
Two-part responsory, Winchester Troper
Infirmo siquidem, cum nullum prendere somnum
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Laudemus dominum
Two-part responsory,
Winchester Troper
Talibus aegrotum
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Sint lumbi vestri
Two-part responsory, Winchester Troper
Pervigilat ternis ibi noctibus atque diebus
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Hwæt ða se halga Swyðun
Aelfric of Winchester, Life of saint Swithun
Via lux veritas
Sequence, Winchester Troper
Quid plura
Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno
Musicological consultant: Susan Rankin
Principal sources:
– Winchester Troper: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 473, 11th century; Oxford, Bodlean Library, Bodley 775, 11th century. Transcriptions: Susan Rankin
– Wulfstan of Winchester, Narratio metrica de sancto Swithuno. Edited by M. Lapidge. Manuscrpit: London, British Library, Royal 15. C. VII, 10-11th century. Music: Katarina Livljanic
– Aelfric of Winchester, The life of saint Swithun. Edited by M. Lapidge. Manuscrpit: London, British Library, Cotton MS Julius E VII, 11th century. Music: Katarina Livljanic
Programme Notes
One of ensemble Dialogos’s favorite repertoires – early medieval polyphony from Winchester (10th-11th c.) – is at the origin of this program. This project is a continuation of our work on early polyphonic repertoires, in collaboration with Susan Rankin from Cambridge University, the principal international specialist of the earliest medieval polyphonic repertoires: after the program Abbo Abbas, created in 2004 (and performed more than fifty times in numerous international festivals), inspired by the personality of Abbon de Fleury, one of the most prominent men of the 10th century, we explore the polyphonic repertoires from the famous Winchester Troper, one of the richest and earliest records of notated polyphony in Western medieval music.
Through the voice of Wulfstan the Cantor, we follow the path of a penitent man haunted by his visionary and terrifying dreams, trying to escape from three raging Furies, wild like wolves, and finally finding salvation from Swithun, saint of all miracles.
Swithun – the saint Superman
The cult of Saint Swithun started when the bishop of Winchester, Aethelwold, transfered the relics of the saint to the Old Minster and celebrated there a sumptuous ceremony on July 15th 971. Thus started an important tradition which transformed this local saint into a sort of Anglo-Saxon medieval Superman, celebrated in the vitruosic Narratio metrica de S. Swithuno by Wulfstan, famous cantor at Winchester cathedral at the end of the 10th century. Several versions of his life were written, the advertising of his relics promoted by his numerous miracles, generous gifts given by healed people.
Wulfstan et Aelfric
Wulfstan, the cantor in Winchester at the end of the 10th century, decided to write a versified life of Saint Swithun: his magnificent Narratio metrica de S. Swithuno is the longest Anglo-Latin poem written before the Norman conquest, dedicated to refined poetry lovers. His mastery of the Virgilian hexameter witnesses of one of the most virtuosic poets of his time. The text is written without musical notation.
For this program, I selected several passages from the Narratio to create a continuous story. The Miracle of Three Furies caught particularly my attention. The three Furies appear as three terrifying women, naked and vulgar. They attack a poor man who loses the use of his legs just after seeing them. The man arrives at the gate of Winchester where he meets a man dressed in white: this mysterious man advises him to go to the miraculous grave in the Old Minster. He spends three nights there, between waking and sleep. In a mystical vision (or while sleeping…) the man in white appears to him again and reveals his identity: he is Saint Swithun himself. The poor man falls asleep again. A big earthquake shakes the grave and the whole church. A superhuman creature takes the man in its hands and takes off one of his shoes (which nobody will be able to find later…). The man remains like a confused Cinderella, without his shoe, but healed from his paralysis caused by the encounter with the three Furies.
In order to put the story in its context, a couple of short passages are taken from another text and used in our program. It is another biography of Saint Swithun, in the Anglo-Saxon language, written by Aelfric, a man from the circle of the bishop Aethelwold of Winchester around 1000. Aelfric’s text was not created for monks or scholars: his version of Saint Swithun’s life, clear and concise, is dedicated to laymen’s education.
The Winchester Troper
In the dense atmosphere in which these great minds moved, liturgical chant took on similar density and sumptuousness. Winchester cantors cultivated a specific musical practice described also by Thierry, a monk of Fleury in France around the year 1000. Speaking of the night-office responsories, he says they were sung ‘by four brothers in albs and cope at the top of the steps; two of them, like pupils, are restricted to the chant melody, while the other two, like masters, stand behind them and perform the accompaniment– they are called “organists”.
The Winchester Troper preserves a large number of pieces for two voices witnessing this tradition. It was copied in the first decades of the 11th century: it contains a series of pieces in Saint Swithun’s honor, some based on a historia, the saint’s life. This repertoire was used as a core of our program: it created a continuous story between the excerpts from saint Swithun’s miracle of three Furies and polyphonic pieces.
Notated using a complex system of neumes which allows of not one but several interpretations, these polyphonic pieces might have been condemned to silence and neglect, since it is impossible to give a unique interpretation of them in modern transcription. Hence any attempt to find out what they sounded like can only proceed from a hypothetical reconstitution, even with the aid of the medieval theoretical treatises (Musica enchiriadis and Guido of Arezzo’s Micrologus). But it is precisely the ambiguity of the written sources that has prompted us to devote ourselves to this repertory: in this program, Dialogos offers a musical creation in which the music of the 10th century from the Winchester Troper (transcribed by Susan Rankin) is placed in dialogue with new musical creations and improvisations in the style of the 10th century singers using the texts of Saint Swithun’s miracles by Wulfstan and Aelfric. These new creations are trying to reconstruct the polyphonic style which medieval cantors in Winchester could have heard in their cathedral, yet opening discretely some new windows to a more contemporary musical language.
– Katarina Livljanić
Ensemble Dialogos
Directed by Katarina Livljanić, singer and musicologist at the Sorbonne University, Dialogos explores our relationship to our musical roots. Since 1997, the ensemble brings together singers and instrumentalists from different backgrounds and countries to revive European oral and written traditions, from the Middle Ages to the present day.
Through the research of Katarina Livljanić, Dialogos’s programmes allow audiences worldwide to (re)discover unknown repertoires, with a particular interest for the southern Slavic world. The past becomes alive again through musical language based on medieval sources, plainchant, traditional melodies and polyphonies. Profound musicality and contemporary stagings reveal the timeless beauty of these stories that have crossed the centuries.
Dialogos has performed in the most prestigious festivals and concert halls worldwide: Boston, Utrecht, Vancouver, Dubrovnik, Sydney, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Cité de la musique in Paris, Folle Journée de Nantes ... French and international critics acclaimed the ensemble for the creativity of its musical choices, the quality of its interpretations as well as the research that accompanies each new project. Dialogos has received awards such as Diapason d'Or, “Choc” from Monde de la Musique, 10 of Répertoire, 5 of Goldberg. The CD of Tondal's Vision won the “Diapason d'Or” of the Year 2004 and the "Coup de Coeur" of the Académie Charles-Cros.
Dialogos is subsidized by the DRAC Île-de-France - Ministry of Culture. « Mécénat Musical Société Générale » is the main sponsor of Dialogos. The ensemble has been in residence at the Ambronay Cultural Center (2006-2009) and the Royaumont Foundation (2011-2014).
Ensemble Dialogos – Swithun: A Medieval Miracle Play
Christel Boiron
After cello studies at the ENM of St Etienne and a degree in musicology, as a singer she entered the Conservatoire of Lyon’s Early Music Department in 1990. She studied with Marie Claude Vallin, Eugene Férré, Dominique Vellard, and graduated from the Conservatory of General Studies of Lyon with honors in 1995.
Since then, she works regularly with the followings ensembles: Musica, Gilles Binchois, Discantus, Choirs Lyon-Bernard Tetu, Huelgas ensemble, Le Concert Spiritual, Contemporary Resonance. Since 2007, she studied vocal technique with Ronald Klekamp and vocal pedagogy at the Center of Voice in the Rhône Alpes.
Christel Boiron recordings include:
Compostelle, le chant de l’étoile Codex Calixtinus (Discantus / jade)
Rampollini, due Canzoni del Petrarca (l’ensemble Poiesis / zig zag )
Motets de Guillaume Dufay, Flos Florum (L’ensemble Musica Nova / zig zag)
Messe, Suites et motets de Guillaume Gabriel Nivers / France Musique)
Dietrich Buxtehude, pièces pour orgue avec Francis Jacob (zig zag territoires)
Les trois Maries, messe grégorienne de pâques (ensemble gilles binchois / virgin Veritas)
Le Concert Secret des dames de Ferrare (ensemble Doulce Mémoire / zig zag territoires)
Madrigaux d’India et D’Adamo (ensemble Poiesis / Aeon )
Ballades de Guillaume de Machaut (ensemble Musica Nova)
Messe de Guillaume de Machaut (Musica Nova / Aeon)
Messe de Striggio (Le Concert Spirituel )
Messe des prolations d’Ockeghem (Musica Nova / Agogique)
Clara Coutouly
After studying contemporary dance, theater and piano, Clara Coutouly completed her training with singing and studying at the Maîtrise de Notre Dame de Paris and Lyon’s Conservatoire, in the class of Marie-Claude Vallin, where she graduated in 2005, Diploma of Superior Studies of Ancient Chant Music. The same year, she participated in the Baroque Academy of Ambronay, conducted by William Christie. Then, she studied at the Musikhochschule Trossingen with Maria Cristina Kiehr.
Clara Coutouly works with early music ensembles (medieval, renaissance and baroque) Doulce Mémoire (Denis Raisin-Dadre), Dialogos (Katarina Livljanic), Céladon (Paulin Bündgen), the Gregorian ensemble of Notre Dame de Paris (Sylvain Dieudonné), Peregrina (Agnieszka Budzinska), Stella Maris Basilea (Tetyana Polt-Lutsenko), Le Miroir de Musique (Baptiste Romain), Vox Luminis (Lionel Meunier),….
She performed with these differents Ensembles in prestigious festivals in France and abroad (Music before 1800 in New-York, Amuz in Anvers, MA-Festival in Bruges, Oude Muziek in Utrecht, Quinçena Musical in San Sebastián, festivals in Split and Dubrovnik, Cité de la Musique of Paris, les Rencontres polyphoniques in Calvi, de Saintes, d’Île de France, de Saint-Denis, d’Ambronay, de Royaumont…).
Together with its polyphonist activities, Clara Coutouly sings and participates regularly as a soloist with choreographic performances or staged (Baroque operetta with Celadon) as well as concerts combining ancient and popular music (Croatian traditional singing with Dialogos, Iran or fado with Doulce Mémoire). Clara Coutouly has recorded for labels Calliope, Zig Zag Territories, Ambronay, K617, Ricercar, and Aeon Arcana and Celadon sets, Calliope, Doulce Mémoire, Dialogos, The Music Mirror, Baroque Crossings, the Gregorian Ensemble Notre Dame de Paris and Vox Luminis.
Caroline Gesret
Caroline began her musical education as a child studying the piano in Rennes, France. While studying economics and cultural management, she joined the singing classes at the Musikhochschule Bochum and then at the Conservatoire in Grenoble and Lyon where she graduated in 2002.
She completed her training in Germany participating in master classes with Thomas Hampson (Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder with orchestra at Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Salzau) and with Dame Felicity Lott and Graham Johnson (Schubert and Schumann’s songs and french melodie in Lübeck) and in Austria with Thomas Quasthoff (Brahms’s songs in Schwarzenberg). In the baroque music area, she was coached by Christophe Coin, Gabriel Garrido and Christina Pluhar on Monteverdi’s operas.
She appeared on stage at the Opéra de Lyon as the messaggiera in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (Latella / Pickett) and took part in several productions at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in the choir (under the direction of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Kazushi Ono, and Christophe Eschenbach). Her repertoire includes baroque oratorio and cantatas; french “mélodie” and german song (in Recital with Jean-Sébastien Dureau and Vincent Planès). She’s intensely involved with contemporary music and has been heard in many first productions of french composers with Choeur Britten (conducted by Nicole Corti) and Resonance Contemporaine (Alain Goudard).
In 2012, she creates her own ensembles : jet:zt! – trio dedicated in particular to the performance of Morton Feldman’s three voices – and 4anima – vocal female quartet forging links between early and contemporary music.
She joined Dialogos (Katarina Livljanic) in 2013.
