Trobár Talks Trobár - Allison Monroe, Elena Mullins, Karin Weston

Join the trio for a romp through The Story of an Early Music Quartet, Sterling Jones's first-hand account of the rise and fall of the Studio der frühen Musik. The Studio helped set the standard for medieval music performance in the 1960s and influenced future generations of performers as founding members of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Historical Performance Department at Indiana University. The book is full of delightful anecdotes that paint a picture of an early music scene somewhat different from today's.
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In this month's episode we interview award-winning playwright and poet Robert Kehew. Kehew was gracious enough to let us use some of the translations from his book Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours, a Bilingual Edition, for our latest season program, Found in Translation 2.0. You can learn more about the book and even hear some live readings of their translations by Kehew and W. D. Snodgrass here, and here's a link to a talk given by Kehew at the Library of Congress shortly after his book was published.
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In this episode we take a tour through Conrad von Zabern's 15th c. treatise on singing chant, "De modo bene cantandi choralem cantum." Von Zabern's exhortations are entertaining and still relevant today!



















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In this episode the trio explores Christmas traditions in medieval England, including feasting, decorating, knife throwing, caroling, and extra-special holiday treats (dried fruit and nuts disguised as entrails, anyone?)
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Watch this space for performances by yours truly of seasonal music, including one of the carols discussed in the episode.
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Relevant episodes of the History of English Podcast:
The Birth of English Song ****** Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ****** Food for Thought
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Relevant episodes of Tasting History:
What Did Medieval Peasants Eat? ****** How to Make a Medieval Trencher
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This month we chat with our friend and colleague, David McCormick. David is the Executive Director of Early Music America, the Artistic Director of Early Music Access Project, a beautiful vielle player, and an overall delightful human being. We get to hear all about how he came to early music, and what his hopes and dreams are for the field.
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In this episode we discuss the poetic pastourelle genre popular with 13th c. French trouvères, and read excerpts from Christine de Pizan's longer narrative pastourelle, the Dit de la pastoure (Tale of the Shepherdess). Medieval pastourelles all begin with the same setup: a knight encounters a shepherdess while he's out riding. The stories play out in a variety of ways, but there is a consistent undertone of potential sexual violence, which is often realized in the narrative conclusion. While the tale is typically told from the perspective of the knight, Christine gives the shepherdess narrative control. She's a fully fleshed out character, with a sense of purpose and with aspirations that are upended by her encounter with the knight. Due to the sensitive topic and brief graphic description of rape that comes up in our introduction to the genre, we've decided to classify this episode as explicit.
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