Spyke
earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyKukelbrecht

new Houston early music band

Sunday, May 31, 2026 · 3:00 PM Live Oak Friends Meeting House 1318 West 26th Street · Houston, TX 77008

From courtly ballads to sacred songs to a poem by John Donne, this program explores the many faces of love as imagined five centuries ago. Featuring works by Praetorius, Dowland, Henry VIII, Alfonso X of Castile, and others — played on instruments you may never have seen before.

Donations welcome. No ticket required.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Belle qui tiens ma vie, de Thoinot Arbeau (ca. 1519-1595). Performance by El Canto de las Vihuelas.

In Thoinot Arbeau's French dance manual, it is generally a dance for many couples in procession, with the dancers sometimes throwing in ornamentation (divisions) of the steps.

The Dictionnaire de Trevoux describes the dance as being a "grave kind of dance, borrowed from the Spaniards, wherein the performers make a kind of wheel or tail before each other, like that of a peacock, whence the name." It was usually used by regents to open grand ceremonies and to display their royal attire. Before dancing, the performers saluted the King and Queen whilst circling the room. The steps were called advancing and retreating. Retreating gentlemen would lead their ladies by the hand and, after curtsies and steps, the gentlemen would regain their places. Next, a lone gentleman advanced and went en se pavanant (strutting like a peacock) to salute the lady opposite him. After taking backward steps, he would return to his place, bowing to his lady.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Lachrimae Pavane- composition by John Dowland (1596), renaissance lute performance by Christopher Morrongiello

"Flow, my tears" (originally Early Modern English: Flow my teares fall from your springs) is a lute song (specifically, an "ayre") by the accomplished lutenist and composer John Dowland (1563–1626). Originally composed as an instrumental under the name "Lachrimae pavane" in 1596, it is Dowland's most famous ayre, and became his signature song, literally as well as metaphorically: he would occasionally sign his name "Jo: dolandi de Lachrimae".

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Greensleeves to a Ground- earliest copy by Richard Jones (1580), arrangement by Annabel Knight, performance by Fontanella Recorder Quintet

A broadside ballad by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in September 1580, by Richard Jones, as "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves". Six more ballads followed in less than a year, one on the same day, 3 September 1580 ("Ye Ladie Greene Sleeves answere to Donkyn hir frende" by Edward White), then on 15 and 18 September (by Henry Carr and again by White), 14 December (Richard Jones again), 13 February 1581 (Wiliam Elderton), and August 1581 (White's third contribution, "Greene Sleeves is worne awaie, Yellow Sleeves Comme to decaie, Blacke Sleeves I holde in despite, But White Sleeves is my delighte"). It then appears in the surviving A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) as A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green Sleeves.

It is a common myth that Greensleeves was written by King Henry VIII. However, Henry did not write Greensleeves as the piece is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

O primavera gioventu- Giaches de Wert (1535-1596), Strings and vocal performance by Concerto di Margherita

Giaches de Wert was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active in Italy. Intimately connected with the progressive musical center of Ferrara, he was one of the leaders in developing the style of the late Renaissance madrigal. He was one of the most influential of late sixteenth-century madrigal composers, particularly on Claudio Monteverdi, and his later music was formative on the development of music of the early Baroque era.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Saltarello II (Anonymous, 15th century Italian)- 14 part ensemble recording by Egoriy Veshniy

The saltarello is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library. It was usually played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare ("to jump"). This characteristic is also the basis of the German name Hoppertanz or Hupfertanz ("hopping dance"); other names include the French pas de Brabant and the Spanish alta or alta danza.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Saltarello no. 4 (anon, 15th century Italian)- ensemble performance by Elthin

Add MS 29987 is a mediaeval Tuscan musical manuscript dating from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, held in the British Library in London. It contains a number of polyphonic Italian Trecento madrigals, ballate, sacred mass movements, and motets, and 15 untexted monophonic instrumental dances, which are among the earliest purely instrumental pieces in the Western musical tradition. The manuscript apparently belonged to the de' Medici family in the fifteenth century, and by 1670 was in the possession of Carlo di Tommaso Strozzi; it was in the British Museum from 1876, where it was catalogued as item 29987 of the Additional manuscripts series. It is now in the British Library.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Goddesses, John Playford (1651)- Ensemble performance by The Theater of Music

John Playford (1623–1686) was a London bookseller, publisher, minor composer and member of the Stationers' Company. He published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments and psalters with tunes for singing in churches. He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651.

Here's the music and dance instructions directly from the English Dancing Master:

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Miserere mei, Deus (Gregorio Allegri, c. 1630s)- Tenebrae Choir performance conducted by Nigel Short

Miserere mei, Deus (Latin for "Have mercy on me, O God") is a setting of Psalm 51 by Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. It was composed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, probably during the 1630s, for the exclusive use of the Sistine Chapel during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week, and its mystique was increased by unwritten performance traditions and ornamentation. It is written for two choirs, of five and four voices respectively, singing alternately and joining to sing the ending in one of the most recognised and enduring examples of polyphony, in this case in a 9-part rendition.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Mirie it is while sumer ilast (anon, 13th century)- ensemble performance by Vocantus

“Mirie it is while sumer ilast” (“Merry it is while summer ylast”) is a Middle English song of the first half of the 13th century. It is about the longing for summer in the face of the approaching cold weather. It is one of the oldest songs in the English language, and one of the few examples of non-liturgical music from medieval England. The manuscript was found together with two old French songs in a book of Psalms in the Bodleian Library. It was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century and made accessible to experts in 1901. It was arranged and published in a modern form for the first time by Frank Llewellyn Harrison.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

Marc' Antonio Cavazzoni (ca. 1490-ca.1560) Recercada di mã ca in bologna- Renaissance Harpsichord performance by Catalina Vicens

All of [Cavazzoni's] extant music is contained in the print Recerchari, motetti, canzoni [...] libro primo, which was published in Venice in 1523. Included are the earliest known ricercars—they are not yet imitative, and are essentially written down improvisations, but there is a considerable amount of thematic development.

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earlymusic·Ancient and Early MusicbyZombiepirate

The Agincourt Carol (15th century folk composition)- vocalists, shawm, and kettledrum performance by the Historic Royal Palaces musicians at the Tower of London

The Agincourt Carol is an English folk song written some time in the early 15th century. It recounts the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, in which the English army led by Henry V of England defeated that of the French Charles VI in what is now the Pas-de-Calais region of France.

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