Our Barony has a demo annually at a gorgeous civil war era fort in Maine on the Penobscot River. There’s always a music portion on the schedule. I missed the morning portion but these are the pieces I did in the afternoon portion of the event.
Here are two of them, warts and all, live recorded from my anachronistic cell phone from within my basket.
Maiden in the Moor Lay is a 14th century English piece written by the ever-popular Anon.
http://www.mbouchard.com/misc/Maiden-in-the-Moor-Lay.anon14thC.mp3
Robin m’aime, written by Adam de Halle somewhere in the mid 1250s, was the third I performed. I read the text in English before singing it in (I am sure woeful) early French. I adore this song.
Robin-m’aime.AdamDeHalle.c1250.mp3
Murie it is is a 13th century English piece, also by Anon. I recorded this one in another part of the fort because there was a lot of noise on the original and I had a rather rambling harp thing I decided was ok for a one-shot but I didn’t particularly want immortalized. I also decided to play with this a little vocally with embellishments and such and liked how it went. I have wanted to learn this piece for a long time but I finally properly learned it at Known World Cooks and Bards when I took a wonderful class on early accompaniment styles.
I feel that the simplicity and elegance of these pieces can be appreciated by modern audiences and I try to perform them in a way that keeps them accessible, but still simple. I’ve grown to really love them and am glad I can do each on relatively short notice.
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