In some sixteenth-century convents – especially after the Council of Trent – the punishment for playing and singing polyphony was the ‘removal of the veil’. This entailed a loss of privileges, and a loss of voice in convent affairs, sometimes for as long as two years. You’d have thought that we had all been very badly behaved, since we seem to have lost our voice for quite some time.
But really, we’ve just had a project under wraps – oh, and Laurie had to finish the draft of her book.
But over the summer of 2015, things have been moving quickly. We were awarded some funds from Arts Council England for some intensive rehearsal, concentrating on the mysterious and extraordinary motets in the 1543 Motteta…materna lingua vocata. And now we are ready to bring them into public performance.
Next Saturday we will be having an unveiling of a different sort, as we introduce our new programme, Lucrezia Borgia’s Daughter, at the Brighton Early Music Festival. It will be an evening of music by the established masters of the Ferrarese ducal chapel, and by the anonymous composer of the materna lingua motets, who we believe is none other than Suor Leonora d’Este (1515-1575), the only daughter of Lucrezia Borgia and Duke Alfonso I d’Este. The concert also marks the five hundredth anniversary of her birth.
Are we excited? I think we are….
