Piffaro's 'West Becomes East'

Toward the end of Piffaro's latest concert, I noted a peculiarity that sums up much of the Renaissance wind band's appeal: Piffaro may be the only ensemble in the world with a harpist who gets up from her chair and starts playing a bagpipe.

How would the Philadelphia Orchestra audience react if the Orchestra's principal harp, Elizabeth Hainen, abandoned her gentle instrument after playing two or three quiet interludes and joined a raucous bagpipe trio?

Harpist Christa Patton did exactly that, and veteran Piffaro fans undoubtedly took it for granted. All of Piffaro's musicians play several instruments, in the spirit of Renaissance town bands.

Patton's collaborators in the bagpipe trio, Joan Kimball and Priscilla Smith, played recorders and two types of Renaissance reeds during this program, in addition to their stints on the pipes. That sort of versatility is one of the main reasons Piffaro consistently presents lively (not to mention wildly varied) programs.

Self-educated woman

Last September, a Piffaro concert explored the influence of European Renaissance and Baroque music on the native cultures of the New World. The natives jumped on European polyphonic music and began producing their own versions of the masses and motets played in European cathedrals. They even learned to make the Renaissance wind instruments that Piffaro plays.

This concert examined the reverse process: how the natives influenced imported European musical forms. Piffaro tied the program together with excerpts from a play by Juana Ines de la Cruz de Asbaje y Ramirez, the illegitimate daughter of a 17th-Century Spanish captain and a Creole mother.

Juana was a self-educated prodigy who taught herself to read and write by the time she was three. At 13, she had mastered Greek logic and other disciplines. She entered a convent at 16, in 1667, and continued to pursue her scholarly and literary activities until the church authorities forced her to give up her unwomanly pursuits in the 1690s.

Native religion vs. "'true' religion

Juana's play, El Divino Narciso, dramatizes the conflict between the native religion and the "true religion" of the Spanish interlopers. The dialogue between the two views placed the music in a historical context, with Piffaro regular Grant Herreid speaking for the church and guest soprano Nell Snaidas representing the resistance.

Juana may have been silenced, but the natives held their own musically. The harmonies and swinging rhythms of many of the pieces on the program would sound familiar to anyone who has heard a Mexican band. Some pieces even contained echoes of modern gospel music.

In a group devoted to Christmas, the native composers put their own stamp on the two moods of the season. Los Coflades de La Estleya ("Fellow Brothers of the Star") got the shepherds to Bethlehem with all their toes tapping, and the lullaby that followed serenaded the baby Jesus with five male voices singing close harmony in alternation with a high tenor. Instrumental pieces for harp, guitar and recorder added more lullaby music, and a song that placed the birth of Jesus in Guinea returned the sequence to the festive, celebratory mood.

Advance to battle

A battle piece earlier in the evening dramatized the violent aspects of the cultural conflict and presented an interesting switch on the standard pavane and galliarde combination. The pairing normally consists of a sedate processional, followed by the lively bumptiousness of the galliarde. In this case, the pavane became a solemn advance to battle that the galliarde transformed into a frenzy.

The guest chorus for this outing was a St. Paul, Minnesota group called The Rose Ensemble. The vocal and instrumental parts sounded particularly well balanced throughout the program, whether Piffaro's instruments were blending with the voices or alternating with them.

With its customary showmanship, Piffaro arranged the evening so it bounced between serious religious works and groups of livelier popular dances and songs. Psalms, Ave Marias and praises of the Lord alternated with dance party music, such as the fast, jig-like canary. The program presented 29 unfamiliar pieces— many that hadn't been heard in centuries— and offered the audience an equally novel view of one of history's greatest cultural confrontations.