New Single - Greensleeves to a Ground & New Album Announcement
Today I’m releasing Greensleeves to a Ground, the first single off of my upcoming album, A Portrait of Melancholy, coming out in 2021.
This year has been hell and I wanted my security blanket. But being a 44 year old man I needed to find a blanket that can soothe my mood while being productive; actual warmth was secondary. Into the studio I went and what resulted was a collection of pieces that range throughout my career, from my student days to a composition I finished writing a few weeks ago. Despite the dark affect of most of the works on A Portrait of Melancholy, each piece was actually a cure for the mood that haunted me. Every work is bound to a memory - of a person, of a moment - and in the midst of isolation and disruption those memories provide some sorely needed warmth.
The resulting album told me a lot about my musical comfort food of choice, and though not totally surprised I can’t say I planned it this way. Ground basses - repeating basslines and harmonic progressions - feature prominently on the album as four of ten tracks. The other six feature repetition in their own way: through repetitive melodic gestures, near-ground bass harmonies, or because of their very structure. Repetitive elements in music are like candy to this colicky baby it seems. I think the use of repetition lowers our guard as listeners and players, leading us into a different way of experiencing music than we might otherwise. When so much of the musical landscape remains static we are allowed to pay attention to different details as the notes flow by.
Greensleeves to a Ground has been a favorite of mine for nearly twenty years. I first came to know it during several years in the early 2000’s when I was fortunate to participate in an artist residency program in rural Kentucky. Getting school children to connect classical music to music they hear daily is a tough job, but those of us in early music have some traditions to lean upon that can ease the leap for listeners. Drawn from The Division Violin (1685), Greensleeves to a Ground occupies a strange place somewhere between fiddling, English division practice, and Italian violin sonatas. The melody is immediately recognizable to nearly everyone, but that quickly gives way to a series of variations made possible by the hypnotic bassline that flies just under the radar. It’s here that the 16th century broadside melody becomes fodder for divisions, a favorite practice of 17th century England where a player would improvise variations ex tempore over a repeating bass line.
Thanks to Ben Cooper for another lovely cover design.
Editor and publisher John Playford (1623 - 1686) took the work further by including figuration in the variations that nod to composers on the Continent, most notably the violinist Arcangelo Corelli. This marriage between the English idiom of divisions with flashy figuration of Rome must have made a splash, leading Playford and his son to include works by composers from the Continent in subsequent printings of The Division Violin, including pieces by Jean Baptiste Lully and Corelli himself. The result propelled this 16th century tune well into the 18th century where it endured until transforming into the familiar holiday carol, What Child Is This, in 1871. It was this mixture of fiddling, virtuosity, and the familiar that made Greensleeves to a Ground an immediate hit with the children we played it for. They experienced a familiar Christmas tune in a new way, just like people in 17th century England experienced an old ballad anew when they played from a crisp copy of The Division Violin.
When making this recording I decided to re-order the divisions as they are presented by Playford in The Division Violin. Personally, the printed order always felt anticlimactic to me so I figured I’d address it if I was already transposing the piece to a more viol-friendly key. I decided I would take both Corelli and Marin Marais’ versions of La Follia (ou Les Folies d’Espagne, en français) as a guide for the general pacing. It was also important to me to end the work with a familiar presentation of the Christmas carol, so you’ll hear that at the close of the recording. Another thing I had to do on this and many other tracks on A Portrait of Melancholy was to play continuo for myself. Playing a solid bassline is something I’ve built a career upon, but plucking chords and realizing harmonies was a new challenge. Luckily I studied with Mark Cudek during my time at Peabody, and while Mark is a master cittern player he can turn a bass viol into a full throated chordal support instrument. With Mark in my mind I made the leap, and I’m happy with the vibe that resulted from having to play as my own back up band.
Thanks for taking the time to read and listen - and expect a new track (or more) every four weeks!