Philadelphia-based Piffaro, a musical ensemble specializing in the music of the Renaissance, takes audiences to 16th century Antwerp in its next concert.
“At the Sign of the Crumhorn” spotlights the music of Tielman Susato, a highly influential composer, music publisher, and trombonist in Renaissance Belgium. His printing shop was marked by a sign picturing the crumhorn, a popular Renaissance wind instrument.
“The crumhorn is one of our multitude of Renaissance wind instruments, which makes up what the group Piffaro is, but also what these people were playing back in the 15th and 16th centuries,” explains Priscilla Herreid, Piffaro’s artistic director.
She says that, when early music saw a new Renaissance of its own in the mid 20th century, Susato’s music - especially a collection of dances composed by him - was among the most commonly recorded. But, she adds, while Susato is best known as a composer for those dances, his creative output was much more diverse.
“One thing I'm very happy about is that we also have a couple of pieces that are not dances written by Susato, and they're gorgeous,” Herreid says. “The dances themselves are also really good, but this is another way to hear his talent.”
While Susato was writing music of his own, he was also on the leading edge of music publishing, responsible for printing and distributing the work of some of the era’s most famous composers, preserving their music for modern audiences to appreciate.
“Having music printed that can survive was made possible by a handful of people, and one of them was Susato,” Herreid says.
One thing Piffaro wants to do on this concert is unite the twin legacies of Susato - as composer and publisher.
“We don't tie the Susato who wrote these dances together with the Susato who published all of this music, generally,” Herreid says. “I was looking back at some pieces that I have performed - that I have even programmed on Piffaro concerts - and never put it together that Susato was the first person to publish them.
One feature in any Piffaro performance is the chance for audiences to see and hear period instruments, similar to the ones that Susato and his contemporaries would have played. In addition to the crumhorn, which has no modern equivalent, listeners at this concert will see sackbuts, which evolved into the modern trombone, and shawms, a forerunner of the modern oboe, among other instruments.
In addition to publishing and writing music, Susato was also a working musician, playing trombone in professional bands in and around Antwerp. In that respect, Herreid says, his life wasn’t all that different from that of a modern-day musician, who also do a lot of things revolving around music.
"He was the epitome of a professional musician, of a working musician, and a lot of professional musicians today wear a lot of different hats,” Herreid says. “We might be teachers. We might use notation software, the modern equivalent of what he was doing in a way. We might play a pops gig and then have a church job. We might do all these different things, and Susato was sort of the 16th century equivalent of that.”
Piffaro presents “At the Sign of the Crumhorn” on Sunday, October 18 at Wilmington’s Christ Church Christiana Hundred.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
