Lutenist Christopher Morrongiello, a former British Marshall Scholar, is a graduate of the Mannes College of Music, the Royal College of Music, and the University of Oxford, where he earned a doctorate in musicology. He was a prizewinner in the BBC Radio Two Young Musician of the Year Competition and a recipient of a Marco Fodella Foundation Scholarship for studies and research in Milan, Italy. In 2006 the Lute Society of America conferred upon him its first Patrick O'Brien LSA Seminar Lectureship. Morrongiello has been heralded as an innovative musical director who has a penchant for placing music in its literary, social, and historical contexts. His musical portrait of the Elizabethan muse and songstress Penelope Devereux, My Lady Rich (Avie Records 0045), has garnered much praise (“an inspired idea . . . a vivid and touching portrait,” wrote Allan Kozzin of the NY Times). Dr. Morrongiello is an adjunct professor in music history at Hofstra University and also directs the Hofstra Collegium Musicum. Recently, the MET produced several beautiful video recordings of his playing on a gut-strung, 16th-century lute, as well as on copies of lutes, in its renowned musical instrument collection.

Recordings by Christopher Morrongiello: My Lady Rich (Avie 0045) Sweet Division (Lute Society of America) Palestrina’s Lute (Lute Society of America) Airy Entertainments (Lute Society of America) Ornythology: Byrd & Friends (Gamut Music)

Strings of Pure Delight Lute Music of the Renaissance & Early Baroque

Christopher Morrongiello, Lute

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum

Virtual Concert

16 June 2020

❧ Program ❧

Pieces published by Pierre Attaingnant, Paris, 1529 Prelude Fortune laisse Galliard Saltarello Anonymous Scottish pieces from Jacobean manuscripts and prints, c. 1620 A Scot’s Tune A Scot’s Tune A Scot’s Tune Canaries A Scot’s Tune Dances from the court of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1590 The Queen's Galliard, Edward Pearse The Lady Rich's Galliard, John Dowland The Earl of Essex's Galliard, John Dowland Pieces published by Joan Ambrosio Dalza, Venice, 1508 Tastar de Corde Ricercar Calata alla Spagnola Elizabethan Ballads for Lute Greensleeves arr. Francis Cutting (fl. 1590) John Singer’s Jig anon. Packington’s Pound Sellenger’s Round

Pieces by Francesco Canova da Milano (1497–1543) Ricercar (Ness 84) Fantasia (Ness 30) Fantasia (Ness 81) Ricercar (Ness 15) Ricercar (Ness 45) Pieces by John Dowland (1562–1626) Prelude A Fancy Frog galliard

❧ Program Note ❧ Is it not strange that sheepes guts should hale soules out of mens bodies?

—William Shakespeare

Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, scene iii

Throughout the Renaissance and Baroque many writers marveled at the power of a well-played lute and its ability to move the soul of man. The lute’s gut strings, delicately plucked, spoke a language at once mysterious, stylish, and profound: “No Language is of Greater Force to me than that of the Lute’s Mystery,” wrote the English music teacher Thomas Mace in 1676. Indeed the lute evoked a kind a language and one that reflected various national styles. Today’s program features works gathered out of the best masters of France, Italy, England, and Scotland. It also reveals the lute’s innate talents at mirroring or mimicking many facets of society, from the suave court dances of Pierre Attaingnant to the nostalgic melodies of Scotland; from the sublime fantasies of Francesco da Milano to the tavern tunes of Elizabethan England. The lute speaks directly, mysteriously at times, but never without a sense of purity and delight. —Christopher Morrongiello