Search - John Playford (Publisher), Les Witches :: Nobody's Jig: Mr. Playford's English Dancing Master - Les Witches

Seventeeth-century English instrumental melodies with Les Witches
Odile Edouard, violin
Claire Michon, flutes
Pascale Boquet, luth et guitar
Sylvie Moquet, Viole de gambe
Freddy Eichelberger, clavecin et cistre The English Dancing Master (1651,...) Music can be listened to from varying distances of knowledge and desire. From afar, it can be nothing but an auditory backdrop, a series of rythms we vaguely recognize as belonging to a particular period or style; we scarcely notice what instruments are playing; we tap our feet absentmindedly, content but ignorant. If we come a bit closer though, and start asking questions about what the music is about, our ears pick up and we begin to distinguish a bit more of what is going on and thanks to whom - in this case the group is a "broken consort" made up of flute, lute, harpsichord, violin or anti-masks, whether they involve improvisation, variation or polyphony...Gradually, we allow ourselves to move away from our own, contemporary freedom, nourished by the sounds of jazz and rock, Africa and Arabia, towards another freedom - that of Elizabethan times. Images begin to coalesce inside our brains - drinking songs in Shakespearian taverns; peasant couples grabbing hands and whirling about on the lawn during village festivals; ladies and gentlemen of the court ezecuting steps imbued with gravity and grace, learned during the hours of precious leisure...Yes, dancing is what it's all about - most pieces on this CD are based on simple melodies from John Playford's collection The Dancing Master (! 1651), and have been harmonized by the Witches musicians themselves. If we move still closer, we come to see that this music (like all forms of music, in fact...including techno!) is a universe unto itself. It contains endless nuances of harmony and tempo, daunting complexities of execution, an original choice of instruments...Here as elsewhere, it's the hardest work that leads to the greatest freedom, and the rigorous respect of rules and forms that give access to the highest magic (we mustn't forget that the word magic, likemagi, has to do with the sacred). Suddenly we are utterly wakeful and attentive:gods, fairies, elves and goblins go filing past us; we withdraw in the company of Queen Elizabeth for a revery in solo lute, we leap and twirl with teh Scots to the sound of bagpipes, and hear the slight mistuning of the six-holed whistle in Drive the Cold Winter Away as a desolate cry over an endless expanse of snow... The whole thing becomes resonant, throbbing, alive, and we see that these contemporary artists indeed live up to their chosen name of Witches - yes, like sorcerers and sorceresses of every time and place, they have a highly refined intelligence, an in-depth knowledge of the ingredients patiently collected for their book of spells, and the ability to transport us, metamorphose us...At the stroke of a wand, we become the Virgin Queen, go dancing body and soul with the peasants of yesteryear, vibrate in unison with the lovely pandora... Four centuries shimmer into nothingness and the Renaissance is now - yes, renaissance, a rebirth: thanks to the music, thanks to the close and careful apprehension of ancient music, we can know what it's like to be born and reborn afresh at every instant.