Piffaro, the Renaissance Band will wrap up its home season with an all-instrumental program, “Now is the Month of Maying.” Concerts take place May 9-11 at three historic churches: Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill (PA), and Immanuel Church Highlands in Wilmington, DE. For those unable to attend in person, the concert will stream online May 23–June 5. Information about the concert can be found at piffaro.org/tix or by calling 215-235-8469.
“There is so much springtime music from the Renaissance,” says artistic director Priscilla Herreid. “Imagine living through a cold, dark winter in a time before electric lighting or central heating. Now it’s May and you’re emerging into warm sunlight. You want to celebrate being alive and being together again! You want to dance, maybe have a little wine, listen to birds sing, and strike up a tune yourself!”
This springtime joy is a universal experience, and composers all over Europe were happy to provide the soundtrack. Piffaro will perform French chansons, German lieder, English songs, Italian madrigals, and dances from everywhere. Highlights include works by Orlando di Lassus, such as Ein guter Wein and Der Mey bringt uns die Blümlein viel; Claude de Sermisy’s Vignon, vignon vignette; Oswald von Wolkenstein, Neidhart, and Ludwig Senfl’s Der May mit lieber zal, Maienzeit, and Der Maien respectively. Herreid shares a personal connection to the music, recalling, “I played Wolkenstein’s Der May mit lieber zal with my mom when I was a teenager, in our band called Quidditas. She would sing the tune and I accompanied her on tenor recorder. It’s a treasured memory, from the early days of my obsession with Renaissance music.”
Animal life also stirs in May, and inspired many charming tunes. Some of the most playful are onomatopoetic. Piffaro’s instruments will evoke the calls of geese with krumhorns, as well as cats, birds, and crickets through pieces like Die Katzenpfote from the Glogauer Liederbuch, Cucú, cucú, cucucú by Juan del Encina, and Josquin de Prez’s El grillo.
After the concert, audience members will be invited onstage to visit Piffaro’s instrument “zoo.” The band will showcase a variety of historically accurate instruments, including shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, krumhorns, bagpipes, recorders, lutes, and more. This experience provides a rare opportunity to get up close to these carefully reconstructed instruments, which bring the music of the Renaissance to life.
Watch Priscilla Herreid perform De Lustelycke Mey by Jacob Van Eyck in Piffaro’s 2020 concert video, The Bells & Whistles of Utrecht: https://youtu.be/kvQO8PRlhco?si=Gifg_Skc61YsQymB
Listen to Im Maien by Ludwig Senfl, from Piffaro’s 2001 recording, Stadtpfeiffer: https://youtu.be/JOL6f77DphA?si=R8_2Wfm1C9eB68No
Now is the Month of Maying
May 9 – Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral
May 10 – Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia
May 11 – Immanuel Church Highlands, Wilmington, DE
May 23-June 5 – Streaming online
Tickets & information at piffaro.org/tix
About Piffaro
Piffaro, the Renaissance band has delighted audiences around the world for four decades with highly polished recreations of the rustic music of the peasantry and the elegant sounds of the official wind bands of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. They bring the sounds of the Renaissance to life with their ever-expanding instrumentarium of shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes, lutes, guitars, and a variety of percussion – all careful reconstructions of instruments from the period and the only professional collection of its kind in North America. For more information, visit piffaro.org.
