Piffaro at the court of Ferrara

The violin may be the key instrument of the modern orchestra, but there was a time when violins were regarded as street instruments, socially inferior to their older cousins, the viols. As David Douglass explained in the lecture that prefaced Piffaro's latest outing, most Renaissance violinists probably couldn't read music. They usually played from memory— a practice that encouraged improvisation.

Douglass is the founder and director of King's Noyse, North America's only professional Renaissance violin band, and most items on Piffaro's program exploited the sonorities and contrasts that musicians could create when a violin band like Douglass's crew joined forces with the kind of town wind band that Piffaro is modeled on.

Put the two together, throw in a harp and a bit of percussion, and you create, in effect, an early version of the modern multi-section orchestra.

First the bagpipes

The three dances that brought the first half to a rousing finale were a good example of the possibilities created by the merger. The set opened with one of Piffaro's inimitable bagpipe introductions. Then Douglass entered with his violin braced against his chest, street musician style; the violins played over the drone of the bagpipes; other wind instruments entered the fray; the tempo accelerated; and the set finished with a blast that blended violins, trombones, woodwinds, guitar and percussion.

The music on the program hailed from the court of Ferrara, during the period from 1534 to 1598 when that northern Italian city was one of Europe's major musical centers. The dance interludes were listed as "courtly entertainments" and alternated with more sedate and elaborate sections that included vocal music sung by guest soprano Ellen Hargis.

An early music star

Hargis has become one of the stars of the international early music circuit and she deserves the status. She possesses a clear voice that holds true when she reaches for a big note and sounds good through the entire range required by the Renaissance repertoire.

Like most early music vocalists, Hargis can't produce the kind of shake-the-rafters volume that opera calls for. The early music repertoire doesn't require such a voice. But you can always hear her, even when she's singing in front of a full complement of winds and strings, and she always commands the center of attention.

The serious sections mostly blended the higher voices of the soprano and the violins with the somber tones of the sackbut (the early version of the trombone) and the lower woodwinds in Piffaro's instrument chest. I usually try to follow the translations of the vocal texts, but I stopped doing that when I realized the songs on this program all said the same thing: I want her but she doesn't want me.

The one exception actually ended up proclaiming that an unusually receptive she had granted her admirer "life that is happy beyond the usual." There were nine songs altogether, so we can deduce, on the basis of the musical record, that Italian Renaissance swains achieved this much-desired state 11% percent of the time.