#sfcm historicalperformance appalachian medieval lifegoeson obladioblada

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A Resonant Evening of Song

by Evan Pengra Sult

Human nature hasn’t changed much over time; the same issues that governed our forebears’ lives continue to define our own. That, at least, was the takeaway from the October 20 concert of Medieval and Appalachian Songs at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Under the direction of Corey Jamason, ten singers performed a program of unaccompanied songs, offering a series of musical portraits that would not be out-of-place in our modern world. Here was the grieving war-widow, only this time her husband was lost in the Crusades, not Niger. There was the confirmed bachelor warning against the perils of marriage. And here, there, and everywhere were umpteen young lovers, from the worldly and saucy to the earnest and mournful.

Most of the Medieval music was unfamiliar –many of the songs are of uncertain origin, and those which aren’t don’t boast “household name” composers (Guiot de Dijon and Juan del Encina, for instance, don’t show up on most “greatest hits” albums). The traditional Appalachian music (all anonymous) rings a less distant stylistic bell, for much American folk music shares similar idioms. But in truth, no prior knowledge of either genre was needed; the universality of the subject matter – love, sex, family, death – made it easy to follow each musical story.

Language was no barrier, either: Karen Notovitz was equally compelling in English as a young battered wife (“The Single Girl”) and in Old French as a lovestruck damsel (“Au renouvel du tens”). She shined with her expressive timing and use of vocal shading to create different characters within the same work. Two other standout performers: Jessie Barnett, whose “Barbara Allen” plumbed the depths of heartbreak and the joys of reunion, and the formidable Elizabeth Dickerson, who offered both a moving, operatic widow’s lament and closed the first half of the program with the curious tale of “The Miller’s Will.” This narrative song tells of two sons who compete unsuccessfully to inherit their father’s business as he lies dying. Separating each verse is a nonsensical refrain (which Ms. Dickerson performed with great relish), somewhere between an onomatopoetic imitation of the noise of the mill and a precursor to “ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on.”

Interspersed with the unaccompanied songs were instrumental works, there for pure enjoyment rather than any obvious programmatic intent. Among them, violinist Shelby Yamin gave a particularly arresting account of Heinrich Biber’s solo passacaglia, a set of continuous variations over a descending lament. She may not have been singing, but her voice came through clearly.

The biggest flaw in the programming was structure; there seemed no order to the way in which the songs were presented. They were not evenly separated by era or performed in regular alternation. At first I thought they might be organized thematically – the second half was shaping up to be “sad songs” until Radames Gil’s jaunty, hilarious performance of “The Shoemaker” blew that theory out of the water. Yet the more I sat there, the more I wondered if maybe this was exactly the point. Life isn’t ordered; it’s a jumble of emotions and experiences. We fall in love, we fall out of love, someone dies, someone is born. Life goes on.