ASTERIA
Flower of Passion - Thorn of Despair
Presenter Information Kit
Artist Bios
In October 2004, Asteria burst onto the national Early Music scene, winning Early Music America’s first Unicorn Prize for Medieval and Renaissance Music with a performance heralded by the New York Times as “intimate and deeply communicative…meltingly beautiful.” This engaging duo brings out the passion and emotional impact of late medieval vocal and instrumental music with timeless love songs of wide appeal, transporting their listeners back to the age of chivalry.
Eric’s skill on the lute and sweet tenor voice are complemented by his expertise in early music, earned through study at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and extensive archival research into original sources. Following graduation from Middlebury College, Eric spent several years immersing himself in the European musical archives of the Hague, Basel and Marburg. During this time he also did post-graduate studies in composition and musicology at the Frankfurt Conservatory of Music, worked in the studio of New York based avant-garde composer Philip Glass and studied medieval lute with Crawford Young and voice with Richard Levitt at the Schola. He now makes his home in New York, where he has studied with Drew Minter and Gary Ramsey.
Sylvia brings to the partnership not only her quicksilver soprano but also a strong dramatic connection with the audience, gained from a professional career in musical theater. She has starred internationally as Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera,” and on Broadway as Joanna in “Sweeny Todd” under the direction of Harold Prince, Susan Schulman and Stephen Sondheim.
Raised in London and the Pacific Northwest, Sylvia grew upsurrounded by classical music, opera and dance. She pursued a passion for early music at Carleton College, guided by Stephen Kelly, taking leading roles in early operas and operettas on her way to a degree in music. She studied also with Wesley Balk at St. Olaf College and recorded with Dennis Russell Davies and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Arriving in New York, Sylvia was invited to sing with the New York City Opera and began ongoing coaching with Marcy Lindheimer.
Upon meeting, Eric and Sylvia immediately discovered their mutual interest in earlier repertoire and began to rendezvous regularly in New York's Central Park to work on late Medieval and Renaissance pieces, gradually developing their passionate approach to the music. Asteria's performances convey the anguish and ecstasy of the poetry and the rapturous beauty of the interweaving vocal and instrumental lines.
The result of Asteria’s exploration can be heard on their first two recordings of 15th century chansons, Le Souvenir de Vous me Tue, and Soyes Loyal, both available from and via digital download from
Program
Flower of Passion - Thorn of Despair
Chivalry and Courtly Love in Medieval Burgundy
Quant La Doulce Jouvencelle Ox. Can. Misc. 213
Pour l’Amour Guillaume Dufay
Pour Prison Gilles Binchois
Naurai Je Jamais Mieux Robert Morton
Dona Gentile Guillaume Dufay
Va T’en Souspir Estienne Grossin
Ich Will Zu Land Ausreiten Johannes Stahl
Seule Esgaree Gilles Binchois
Soyes Loyal Ox. Can. Misc. 213
~Pause~
Entre Vous Nouviaux Maries Johannes le Grant
Adieu Ces Bons Vins Guillaume Dufay
Le Souvenir De Vous Me Tue Robert Morton
Vit Encore Ce Faux Dangier Jacques Vide
Deuil Angoisseux Gilles Binchois
Se La Face Ay Pale Guillaume Dufay
Program Notes
One hundred years before the reign of the Renaissance masters, a new polyphonic art form was taking root in the Low Countries and making its way across a rapidly changing Europe. The Burgundian chanson tradition, which reached its apex in the latter part of the 15th century, is much less well known and understood than that of the 16th century; however, it was a crucial step in the development of western music, leading out of more chaotic, early polyphonic experiments into the refined, mature polyphony of the high Renaissance.
The art songs from the latter Middle Ages are suffused with grand pathos: the longing and ecstasy of love and the pain and bitterness of unrequited passion. The role that these texts and their musical settings played in European courtly life is an important one, a ready topos for the forms and cathartic rituals that lent meaning and palpability to the rigors of everyday medieval existence, in which the best way to understand forces such as death, jealousy, shame and lust was to give them a name and a human face.
The verses that make up the bulk of the Burgundian chanson repertoire often seem superficially simple, even trite, and yet they are steeped in a fascinating tradition of elevated poetry that sought to transcend the horror of everyday existence in the Middle Ages, with its plagues, diseases and death at every turn, creating a temporary mythical reality. Reading court scribes of the period would lead us to believe that every move, meeting and affair was drenched in a surfeit of emotion and allegorical role-playing that bordered on the fantastic.
Lords, courtiers, pages -- everyone rejoiced, wept and despaired with great frequency and passion. The distinction between fiction and non-fiction writing is in fact barely perceivable given that the 400-year-old chivalric tradition was still very much the dominant aesthetic even into the 16th century. Quasi-deification of the “Lady”, appeals for aid to personified figures representing Fate, Death, Jealousy and a general willingness to extinguish one’s life at the drop of a 'glove' for one’s principles all find their way into Burgundian poetry in much the same manner as in the 13th century verses of the Provençal troubadours.
The chansons in Flower of Passion - Thorn of Despair are rich with these images and ideals, so deeply woven into the medieval consciousness. “The memory of you kills me when I can not see you...” writes Robert Morton in the haunting "Le Souvenir de Vous me Tue", while Estienne Grossin asks bluntly in his delightful ‘Vit Encore’: “...is he not dead yet, this false Danger? Then by God, he shall soon die!”
Every generation wistfully idolizes that which preceded it as being more pure, and uncluttered with trouble and complexity. As you listen to the songs of these masters, let the emotions conveyed in their ancient melodies carry you away, as they did the courtly audiences of the Middle Ages, yearning for the romantic utopia of their forbears.
Program Text Synopses
Quant La Doulce Jouvencelle
Anon from Oxford Can. Misc. 213 (~1420)
If the gentle maiden...
Desires only to make me happy
Should I not grant her wish?
Pour l’Amour De Ma Doulce Amye
Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474)
For the love of my sweet Love
I would like to sing this rondelet
Pour Prison
Gilles Binchois (1400-1460)
Not prison, nor illness, nor anything one can tell me
Can make my heart forget you...
N’auray-je Jamais Mieux
Robert Morton (~1430-1476)
Will I never have better than I have?
Am I to remain where I am,
my love and all my pleasure?
Dona Gentile (lute)
Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474
Va T’ent Souspir
Estienne Grossin (~1420)
Go, sigh, I beg you, quickly to my Lady;
And tell her sweetly of my malady.
Ich Will Zu Land Ausreiten
Johannes Stahl (~1450)
I want to ride out into the land...
In thirty-two years, Frau Uten have I not seen.
Seule Esgaree
Gilles Binchois (1400-1460)
Alone, abandoned by all joyous pleasure
Pain is that in which I shall languish...
Soyes Loyal
Anon from Oxford Can. Misc. 213 (~1420)
Remain loyal as well as you are able.
You will soon receive comfort from Sweet Hope.
Entre Vous Nouviaux Maries
Johannes le Grant ( fl. 1420)
Among you newlyweds...do not fall asleep!
Adieu Ces Bons Vins De Lannoys
Guillaume Dufay
Farewell those good wines of the Lannoys...
Le Souvenir De Vous Me Tue
Robert Morton
The memory of you kills me,
My one treasure, when I cannot see you.
Vit Encore
Jacque Vide (1404-1433)
Is he living still, this false Danger,
who so much discomfits us?
Dueil Angoisseux
text: Christine de Pisan / music: Gilles Binchois
Anguished grief, rage beyond measure...
Princes, pray to God, who owes me death soon.
Se La Face Ay Pale
Guillaume Dufay
If the face is pale, the cause is love...
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