I’m not sure if I know how to convey how much I despise competition. The other performers are my friends and most of the times it’s like comparing apples to zebras. The reason I do these is because I want to be seen by my community, see others in my community, be introduced to new people and pieces and maybe there will be a cookie at the end.
This year was strange. We were all in zoom room together. Sure, we got to chat before, between and after rounds, but the energy just wasn’t the same. I felt so far away from my friends. I was able to cheer them on digitally, but, like the cyber world, it just feels so empty. Acoustics are weird in houses, pets and children wander in, lighting is subpar and cars drive by.
Motivation was also weird this year. Typically I memorize my pieces. There is nothing in the rules that demands you be off book, but as a seasoned performer, it is something I try to do for myself. This year, I set up my sheet music on my TV screen, my web cam on top of that and my studio mic. I thought I had done an adequate sound check (and was wrong) and I thought I had also set up my green screen appropriately. I had even gone through OBS to set up a more appropriate background so I wouldn’t be cut out with the ones on zoom. Again, all wrong.
Despite the all the setbacks and just not feeling 100% me, I still am proud of my performances and the feedback I received was super helpful.
I started with Stella Caelis Exturpavit
We are in the town of Coimbra Portugal having been visited by a violent pestilence, the nuns of St Clare offered their prayers in the following form, whereupon the contagion instantly ceased. This holy prayer, left to the monastery of St Clare, has preserved many places from contagion where it is recited daily with confidence in God and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary..“Black Death” (1347-1351).
Stella Caeli Extirpavit in English
The Star of Heaven that nourished the Lord
drove away the plague of death which the first
parents of man brought into the world.
May this bright Star now vouchsafe to extinguish
that foul constellation whose battles have
slain the people with the wound of death.
O Glorious Star of the Sea, preserve us from
pestilence; hear us, O Lady, for Thy Son honours
Thee by denying Thee nothing.
Save us, O Jesus,
for whom Thy Virgin Mother supplicates Thee.
Stella Caeli Extirpavit in Latin
Stella caeli exstirpavit
Quae lactavit Dominum
Mortis pestem quam plantavit
Primus parens hominum.
Ipsa Stella nunc dignetur
Sidera compescere,
Quorum bella plebem caedunt
Dirae mortis ulcere.
O gloriosa Stella Maris
A peste succurre nobis;
Audi nos, nam te Filius
Nihil negans honorat.
Salva nos Jesu pro quibus
Virgo mater te orat!
Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana. Frangipani Press, 1986. ISBN 0-89917-034-X
Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
Then I finished with Flow My tears by John Downland
Flow, my tears, fall from your springs!
Exiled for ever, let me mourn;
Where night’s black bird her sad infamy sings,
There let me live forlorn.
Down vain lights, shine you no more!
No nights are dark enough for those
That in despair their last fortunes deplore.
Light doth but shame disclose.
Never may my woes be relieved,
Since pity is fled;
And tears and sighs and groans my weary days, my weary days
Of all joys have deprived.
From the highest spire of contentment
My fortune is thrown;
And fear and grief and pain for my deserts, for my deserts
Are my hopes, since hope is gone.
Hark! you shadows that in darkness dwell,
Learn to contemn light
Happy, happy they that in hell
Feel not the world’s despite.
“Flow My Tears” is an aire (“ayre”) or lute song composed by late English renaissance lutenist and composer John Dowland (1563-1626). It was originally composed as an instrumental under the name Lachrimae pavane in 1596, and became Dowland’s signature tune. It is believed that Dowland wrote the lyrics shortly thereafter to the melody of his pavane.
The lyrics express an intense melancholy of someone whose happiness has been abruptly shattered and desires to not be saved from this dark despair. The expression of melancholy, and notions of darkness, neglect, Time’s cruelty, spiteful age, were themes used by Elizabethan songwriters to prefigure the stark inevitability of death, and it remained a prominent feature of English literature and music in the time of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare.
Meddlings of the Minnesinger 