CONCERTS

77TH SEASON OF

national gallery of art | september 30, 2018
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PROGRAM

Entertainment at Sea

Thomas Ravenscroft (1582 – 1633)

“The wind blows out of the west”

Edward Gibbons (1568 – c.1650)

“What strikes the clock”

Thomas Ravenscroft

“We be three poor mariners”

Clement Woodcock (1540 – 1590)

“Hackney”

Anonymous (early 17th c.)

Arr. Grant Herreid

“Sailing in the Lowlands”

John Coperario (c. 1570 – 1626)

“Fantasia à 6”

John Dowland (1538 – 1623)

Arr. Grant Herreid 

“Up merry mates”

voices, recorders, lute, harp, crumhorns

Prayers at Day’s End

William Byrd (1538 – 1623)

“Siderum rector”

Traditional chant

“Salve Regina”

Peter Philips (1560 – 1628)

“Salve Regina à 5”

shawms, sackbuts, dulcians

Intermission

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band

Joan Kimball, Bob Wiemken, Artistic Co-Directors

Grant Herreid, lute, guitar, recorder, shawm, percussion

Priscilla Herreid, shawm, dulcian, recorder, bagpipe

Greg Ingles, sackbut, recorder, crumhorn, percussion

Joan Kimball, shawm, dulcian, recorder, crumhorn, bagpipe

Christa Patton, shawm, harp, crumhorn, bagpipe

Erik Schmalz, sackbut, recorder, crumhorn, percussion

Bob Wiemken, dulcian, shawm, recorder, crumhorn, percussion

With Jean Bernard Cerin, baritone, and Garrett Eucker, tenor

Celebrating Water, Wind, and Waves: Marine Paintings from the Dutch Golden Age

Water, Wind, and Waves: The Wind Band at Sea

September 30, 2018 | 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Introduction 

Anonymous (16th c.)

Tourdion, French dance 

recorders, lute, sackbuts, shawms, dulcian, percussion

The Waits Go to Sea

Robert Parsons (c. 1535 – 1572)

“Song Called Trumpets”

Adrian Willaert (1490 – 1562)

“Ave maris stella”

Philip Van Wilder (1500 – 1554)

“O dulces regard” 

shawms, sackbuts, dulcian, percussion
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THE ENSEMBLE

“Widely regarded as North America’s masters of music for Renaissance Wind Band” 

(St. Paul Pioneer Press), Piffaro has delighted audiences throughout the United States, 

Europe, Canada, and South America since its founding in 1980. The group recreates 

the rustic music of the peasantry, as well as the elegant sounds of the official, professional wind bands of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its ever-expanding 

instrumentarium includes shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, crumhorns, bagpipes, 

lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion — all careful reconstructions of 

instruments from the period.

Under the direction of its artistic co-directors, Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken, 

Piffaro concertizes extensively, both at home with its four-concert series in Philadelphia, as well as nationally and internationally. The ensemble debuted at Tage Alter 

Musik in Regensburg, Germany, in 1993, and has returned to Europe frequently since 

then, performing at major festivals in Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, 

Spain, and the Czech Republic. The group has traveled to South America, including 

Bolivia, under the auspices of that country’s biannual International Renaissance and 

Baroque Festival. Piffaro has appeared at major early music festivals nationwide, 

including those in Boston, Berkeley, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Madison, as well as 

in early music and chamber music series in the United States and Canada. In 2019, the 

ensemble will return to Regensburg for its seventh appearance at that noted festival.

Piffaro has been active in the field of education since its inception, and has been 

honored twice for its work by Early Music America, receiving the “Early Music Brings 

History Alive” award in 2003, and the “Laurette Goldberg Lifetime Achievement Award 

in Early Music Outreach” in 2011. Every two years, Piffaro’s National Recorder Competition for Young Players held in Philadelphia attracts talented competitors from around 

the country.

Recordings are a significant part of the ensemble’s work, with eighteen releases 

since 1992 — four on the Deutsche Grammophon /Archiv Produktion label. Piffaro 

has issued two highly regarded collaborations: one in 2005 with the renowned Belgian 

vocal group, Capilla Flamenca, and the other a work commissioned by Piffaro, featuring 

Kile Smith’s Vespers with the chamber choir The Crossing. The latter recording, 

released on the PARMA / Navona label in 2009, was praised as “a masterpiece of the 

deepest kind” (Audiophile Audition). Piffaro’s most recent recording, Back Before 

Bach, was released in July 2017.

Battle at Sea 

Matthias Hermann Werrecore (c. 1500 – after 1574)

Excerpts from “La Bataglia Taliana”

Tylman Susato (c. 1510/15 – after 1570) 

Pavane “La Battaglia”

John Adson (1587 – 1640)

“Masquing ayre # 21” 

slide trumpets, shawms, sackbuts, dulcian, percussion

Battle’s Aftermath — Mourning & Prayer

Peter Philips

“Pavan dolorosa”

Thomas Tallis (1505 – 1585)

“Miserere nostri”

“In ieiunio et fletu”

“Hear the voice and prayer”

recorders, voices, lute, harp

The Port Is Near, the Voyage Ends

Anonymous, from The Mulliner Book (c. 1570)

Arr. Piffaro

“La Bounette”

Anonymous (early 17th c.)

Arr. Grant Herreid

“When stormy seas do blow”

Anonymous, from Squire’s Masque (1613)

Arr. Grant Herreid

“Sailor’s masque”

John Coperario, from Squire’s Masque (1613)

Arr. Grant Herreid 

“Come ashore, come merry mates”

Attrib. Alfonso Ferrabosco, Jr. (c. 1575 – 1628), from Fitzwilliam Wind Band Manuscript

Two Allemandes 

bagpipes, voices, recorders, shawms, sackbuts, dulcian, percussion
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PROGRAM NOTES onomatopoeic sounds — the cries of battle, trumpet calls, cannon fire. Inevitably, 

whether victorious or not, those involved in such warfare mourn the dead in the 

battle’s aftermath, and in the following set we offer three sacred pieces: two Latin 

motets and a hymn in English, by Thomas Tallis, one of England’s most celebrated 

and long-lived composers.

The program ends with a sense of relief that the voyage is done and sailors and 

musicians alike are back on terra firma. In the anonymous ballad “When stormy seas 

do blow,” the sailors celebrate in proper style:

When we return in safety with wages for our pains,

The tapster and the vintner do help to share our gains.

We’ll call for liquor roundly, and pay before we go;

And we’ll roar on the shore, when the stormy winds do blow.

Program notes by Joan Kimball

The singing of sea ballads and sea shanties while working on board ship has been a 

common practice for centuries (think of the countless number of such songs that 

date back at least to the 1500s), but it is also well documented that ship captains in 

the Age of Discovery invited professional instrumentalists to accompany them on their 

voyages. Sir Francis Drake requested the town waits of Norwich (wind band players 

such as ourselves) for his Portuguese voyage in 1589, having heard of the great quality 

of their music-making. The town mayor obliged, the waits agreed to go, and the 

mayor’s court equipped them with six cloaks, three new hautboys (shawms), a treble 

recorder, ten pounds each for their expenses, and a wagon to carry them and their 

instruments to the ship.

Based in part on such evidence, we have fashioned a program featuring music 

that might set the mood for various hours of the day on board ship, and which 

also commemorates a historical moment at sea. The main portion of the music is 

represented by English composers, with a few insertions of repertoire from the 

Low Countries across the English Channel.

Our sea-bound journey begins with the fanfare-like “Song Called Trumpets,” 

calling all to the ship, followed by a prayerful song to the Virgin Mary, the Star of 

the Sea. On board, sailors and instrumentalists regale with sea ballads and light 

instrumental interludes, while at the end of the day, all gather for evening prayer. 

Christopher Columbus noted this practice in his journal:

An apprentice carried the binnacle lamp aft along the deck, singing “Amen 

and God give us a good night and a good sailing. May the ship make a good 

passage, captain and master and good company.” Then the apprentices led 

the sailors in prayer, chanting the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the 

Credo, after which all hands sang the Salve Regina.

The practice of singing this hymn spread to other seafaring nations and became 

popular not only as the core of the evening service on board, but also as part of the 

ritual for the blessing of a ship.

The previous mention of Sir Francis Drake calls to mind the famous, or perhaps 

infamous, Spanish Armada (1588), and the battles with Drake’s forces that left the 

Spanish fleet in tatters, retreating ignominiously back to Spain. To commemorate this, 

we combine excerpts from “La Bataglia Taliana” by the Flemish composer Matthias 

Hermann Werrecore with Tylman Susato’s Pavane “La Battaglia,” two stirring pieces 

typical of the numerous battle songs composed during the sixteenth century, all 

modeled on Clement Jannequin’s famous French chanson “La battaille,” filled with 
Upcoming Events of the SeventySeventh Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Julie Fowlis, vocalist

Music of the Scottish Isles

October 7, 3:30

Curtis on Tour: Jason Vieaux, guitar, 

and Nigel Armstrong, violin

Music of Piazzolla, Giuliani, Jobim, 

and de Falla

October 14, 3:30

Vox Luminis

Funeral Music for a Prince and a Queen

October 21, 3:30

Trio Sefardi

Sound Sketches

October 26, 12:10

Location will be posted the day 

of the concert.

PUBLIQuartet 

With Ian Rosenbaum

Celebrating Rachel Whiteread

MIND /  THE  /  GAP

October 28, 3:30

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art 

and all of its programs is free of charge, 

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording 

equipment during the performance 

is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic 

devices are turned off.

—

Concerts are made possible in part 

through the generosity of donors to the 

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition 

of their support. Please contact the 

development office at (202) 842-6450 or 

circle@nga.gov for more information.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2018 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington

Cover Aelbert Cuyp, The Maas at 

Dordrecht (detail), c. 1650, National 

Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. 

Mellon Collection. On view in the West 

Building, Main Floor, Gallery 72

NGA.GOV/MUSIC