Trobár Talks

In anticipation of our Oct 25-26 shows A Room of Her Own: Christine’s Defense of Women (tickets available here), Allison and Elena speak about our favorite groundbreaking medieval writer with scholar Charlotte Cooper-Davis. Find links to both her introductory book, Christine de Pizan: Life, Work, Legacy, and her scholarly tome, Christine de Pizan, Empowering Women in Text and Image, at her website.

Also:
Our first album Il dit/Elle dit is available for purchase!!
Check out Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party

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We are re-releasing our first ever podcast conversation in time for the return of one of our favorite programs, A Room of Her Own: Christine de Pizan's Defense of Women (coming to Cleveland October 25-26!). Founding members Allison Monroe, Elena Mullins, and Karin Weston discuss Pizan's bold and ambitious defense of women in her masterpiece, The Book of the City of Ladies. We also take a closer look at some of the hair-raising, misogynistic texts that Christine so ably rebutted and explore how these themes affected the vocal music of Christine's day.

More information about A Room of Her Own: Christine de Pizan's Defense of Women is available here, and you can reserve your seat today here!

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In this episode Allison and Elena are joined by guest artists Sian Ricketts and Allen Otte, providing you a behind the scenes glance at our upcoming live concerts! We even preview two of our favorite selections from the program. Learn more about the two shows here, happening this Sep. 17 & 18 in Cleveland Heights and Cleveland's Clark Fulton neighborhood.
And learn more about the excellent makers of Elena's harp, Campbell Harps, here!

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In this episode the trio explores Christmas traditions in medieval England, including feasting, decorating, knife throwing, caroling, and extra-special holiday treats (dried fruit and nuts disguised as entrails, anyone?)
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Watch this space for performances by yours truly of seasonal music, including one of the carols discussed in the episode.
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Relevant episodes of the History of English Podcast:
The Birth of English Song ****** Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ****** Food for Thought
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Relevant episodes of Tasting History:
What Did Medieval Peasants Eat? ****** How to Make a Medieval Trencher

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Join the trio for a romp through The Story of an Early Music Quartet, Sterling Jones's first-hand account of the rise and fall of the Studio der frühen Musik. The Studio helped set the standard for medieval music performance in the 1960s and influenced future generations of performers as founding members of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Historical Performance Department at Indiana University. The book is full of delightful anecdotes that paint a picture of an early music scene somewhat different from today's.

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In this episode the trio discusses the influence that Middle Eastern traditions may or may not have had on the development of European medieval music, and what modern re-creators of the music (like Thomas Binkley) have learned from studying those traditions. In particular we discuss Binkley's "On the Modern Performance of Medieval Monophonic Repertory," Jonathan Shull's "Locating the Past in the Present: Living Traditions and the Performance of Early Music," Kirsten Yri's "Thomas Binkley and the Studio der Frühen Musik: challenging 'the myth of Westernness," and John Haines's "The Arabic Style of Performing Medieval Music."

Mentioned in the episode: musical selections by Boston Camerata; Sequentia; New York Pro Musica; Studio der Frühen Musik; more Studio; Altramar

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In this episode the trio reads aloud an English translation of "Guigemar," an engaging and somewhat strange lai (or tale) by Marie de France, preserved in a manuscript from the 13th c.  And of course we provide context and color commentary along the way!

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Warning: This month’s episode of Trobár Talks is so bad that we can only imagine you all using it as blackmail material years from now. Regardless, we wish everyone a happy holiday season and promise to do better in 2022!! *******

In the episode we read excerpts of The Second Shepherds’ Play in a modern translation (with a few semi-appropriate musical insertions).

Dover Thrift Editions - https://www.etsy.com/listing/1060686394/vintage-pop-culture-book-everyman-and?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_c-books_movies_and_music-books-literature_and_fiction-literary_fiction&utm_custom1=_k_CjwKCAiAh_GNBhAHEiwAjOh3ZLanO8vQFNFhqRTzDxncvEj0bPZk3oyNGFL5E2lte3ac3IYmAI66mxoCJMQQAvD_BwE_k_&utm_content=go_12573073825_119955070496_507798476349_aud-1184785539738:pla-316241130904_c__1060686394_124916138&utm_custom2=12573073825&gclid=CjwKCAiAh_GNBhAHEiwAjOh3ZLanO8vQFNFhqRTzDxncvEj0bPZk3oyNGFL5E2lte3ac3IYmAI66mxoCJMQQAvD_BwE

Ed. Candace Ward

Reprint of The Second Shepherds’ Play, Everyman and Other Early Plays translated by Clarence Griffin Child (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, The Riverside Press, 1910)

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In this episode the trio was fortunate enough to snag a conversation with Anne Azéma, French-born vocalist, scholar and stage director, as well as the director of The Boston Camerata since 2008 and the French ensemble Aziman, which she founded, since 2005. We got to hear about Anne's musical training, and chat about the challenges of working with and presenting medieval music to modern audiences. Enjoy!

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In this episode we discuss the poetic pastourelle genre popular with 13th c. French trouvères, and read excerpts from Christine de Pizan's longer narrative pastourelle, the Dit de la pastoure (Tale of the Shepherdess). Medieval pastourelles all begin with the same setup: a knight encounters a shepherdess while he's out riding. The stories play out in a variety of ways, but there is a consistent undertone of potential sexual violence, which is often realized in the narrative conclusion. While the tale is typically told from the perspective of the knight, Christine gives the shepherdess narrative control. She's a fully fleshed out character, with a sense of purpose and with aspirations that are upended by her encounter with the knight. Due to the sensitive topic and brief graphic description of rape that comes up in our introduction to the genre, we've decided to classify this episode as explicit.

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