Consort of 1: The Medieval Imaginarium

Paintings from the Middle Ages are often used to back up research into historical performance practice, and yet they also show a world far beyond the reality of Medieval life: weird creatures, animals playing instruments, historical events from centuries before the lifetime of the artist, and combinations of instruments that defy the theoretical musical teachings of the day. 

Lizzie Gutteridge uses her live-looping, combined with a wide range of historical instruments including aulos, bagpipes, recorders, fiddles and percussion, to explore the imaginary world conjured up by these images and sources. 

Some examples: 

-The compositions of Mesomedes, composer to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, only survive because they, along with the theoretical treatise on ancient Greek musical notation, were copied over and over handed down through the centuries by scribes and monks. The oldest surviving copies we now have are from the 13th century. So did Medieval monks ever sing or play these tunes which were already 1000 years old? 

-In the German town of Ausburg, in the first few decades of the 16th century, a fascinating tradition took place. Each year the town’s dignitaries would dress up in historical costumes, representing their forbears from the 1200s through to their own time. They performed processions and dances, and even commissioned paintings of the occasion where the people are labeled by name along with the dates they represent. In one of these paintings, from 1522, we can see the Stadtpjeiferen (the town band, or Waits, as they were known in England), with their alta capella instruments, who are joined by a lutenist, a bagpiper and a drummer. What did they play? Was it the latest hoftanzen or did they try something much older? 

-When Barnaba de Modena painted the coronation of the Virgin Mary in 1374, he showed her surrounded by a host of musical angels with trumpets, fiddle, lute, organ, shawm, bagpipe and aulos. What might that band have sounded like, in the artist’s head? What tune was he humming to himself as he plied his paint brushes? 

Consort of 1 is Lizzie Gutteridge’s live-looping Early Music project where she performs music from the 2nd-17th centuries on historical instruments including fiddles, bagpipes, shawms, percussion, recorders, aulos, pipe & tabor, & vocals. By combining sounds of the past with some 21st century technology new light is thrown onto ancient music, peeling back, then building up the layers of anything from Medieval dances to lyrical chansons. Historical melodies are given the lightest of modern make-overs with the aid of live looping equipment. Much of this material lends itself well to the layers and cycles that can be produced using the loop station, and most of these new arrangements are based on the premise of “what might a person from the period when this tune was written have done with this technology, had they had the chance?” 

There are a few ground rules – no electronically altered sound, nothing louder than the natural acoustic sounds produced by the historical instruments and every note of every show will be played live on the day – nothing pre-recorded.
The music and instruments will be briefly introduced and explained between pieces, but the emphasis will be on the music’s own ability to intrigue, enlighten and entertain. When a 5 part chanson from the late 15th century is put together one part at a time, it can allow the modern audience a chance to notice elements of the interplay between parts which might otherwise pass them by, as each layer changes the perspective on both rhythm and harmony. A 2 part Ductia from the 13thC can be gradually layered up in 4 or more parts – throwing light on the relationships between different sections of the music by playing them against each other.
   

Lizzie Gutteridge took up playing shawm as a part of the historical re-enactment movement to re-form Waits bands, then decided to pursue it further and make it her main occupation. She plays a wide range of historical instruments, including bagpipes, recorders, curtals, fiddles and aulos. 

As well as being a regular member of Blondel, The York Waits and the New Cambridge Waits, Lizzie’s engagements have included the Globe’s “Nell Gwynn”, both on tour and in the West End, “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” at the Wanamaker Theatre, performances in Morocco and London with Passamezzo, large scale events at Hampton Court and the Tower of London as well as TV appearances on “Thronecast – Gameshow of Thrones” and “A Merry Tudor Christmas with Lucy Worsley” and live & recorded performances on bagpipe of Gregory Rose’s “Dance Macabre”. She recently performed a specially composed work for ‘cello and aulos in the National Gallery as part of their “Utterly in the picture” series. Lizzie’s solo project “Consort of 1” combines early music on historical instruments with the use of live looping equipment which allows layering of parts to show Medieval and Renaissance melodies from a new perspective. She also runs the Colchester Waits; a community shawm band welcoming people of all ages, abilities and musical backgrounds, and makes reeds for shawms, curtals, crumhorns and sordunes.