Courtlye Music offer a range of entertaining and carefully planned programmes delivered with humour and enthusiasm. These can be shaped to meet the needs of any audience. The music is brought into context either through selected readings, or through information about the instruments and the historical period.
Courtlye Musick may be found playing for special occasions, including concerts, workshops, festivals, receptions, historic events, weddings, civic occasions, or providing a special ambience for a dinner party. Most performances are given in Tudor and/or Elizabethan costume.. For larger events, a group of historical dancers may accompany the quartet.
The floor space needed for the instrument display and for performance is a minimum of twenty feet in width with a depth of ten feet.
Whatever, or wherever, the occasion, if there is a need for a traditional or historical flavour, Courtlye Musick can provide you with the atmosphere and the entertainment to make your event special.
On expectations of minstrels: "to be good at story telling and rhyming and trials of skill. He must know how to play the drum, cymbals and the hurdy gurdy; to juggle with apples and to jump through four hoops; to play the citole and the lute, the harp and the fiddle and many other instruments..."
12th Century manuscript."...rogues and vagabonds" Queen Elizabeth I.
On the recorder: "Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music."
Shakespeare, from 'Hamlet'.
On the shawm: "harsh and wailing and are blown with force."
Arbeau, 1589.
On the serpent: "'Yet there's worse things than serpents,' said Mr Penny. 'Old things pass away, 'tis true; but a serpent was a good old note: a deep rich note was the serpent.'"
Hardy, from 'Under the Greenwood Tree'.
"Well, THAT was not the serpent that tempted Eve." Handel.
On the sackbut ...? sacabuche ...? saquboute ...? sakbud ...? seykebud ...? shakebutte ...? shakebutt ...? shagbolt ...?
On Courtlye Musick: "At great feasts ... they are to play upon shagbutt, cornetts, shawms and other such instruments going with wind."
Brathwaite, 1621.
Courtlye Musick is a group of four versatile musicians who specialise in the authentic presentation of Renaissance and Medieval music. Their flexible approach allows them to tailor their performances to suit the situation making them equally at home in music clubs, Arts centres, schools, castles or recording studios.
In performance, the quartet is surrounded by a fascinating array of instruments including Renaissance woodwind, (crumhorns, rauschpfeifen, shawms, rackets, curtal and recorders); strings, (viols, rebec, lute and harp); brass, (sackbutts, slide-trumpet, buisine, cornetti, lysardens and serpent), and others such as gemshorns, bells and percussion.
Courtlye Musick play for special occasions, including concerts, festivals, receptions, historic events, weddings, civic occasions and dinner parties dressed in Tudor and/or Elizabethan costume. They offer a range of entrrtaining and carefully planned programmes delivered with humour and enthusiasm and, if required can bring the music into context either through selected readings, or through information about the instruments and the historical period. In schools, childrens attention is held by the fascinating variety of sounds, the vast array of instruments and the colourful costumes.
Whatever, or wherever the occasion, if there is a need for a traditional or historic flavour, Courtlye Musick can provide the atmosphere and entertainment to make your event special.
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