Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994 TAG: 9404220175
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If you draw a blank at the idea of melding classical music and American blues, you're like most people. But the unlikely synthesis of medieval European music and the blues is just what the early music crossover group Hesperus will bring to Roanoke College Saturday night for a Roanoke Valley Chamber Music Society concert.
``Actually, I kinda hesitate to call medieval European music `classical music,''' said Hesperus founder Scott Reiss.
The Arlington-based musician, whom the Washington Post has called one of the three greatest recorder virtuosos in the world today, says it's an open question as to whether early medieval music is more akin to classical music or folk music.
``We feel it's the latter. Because of the way it comes down to us, we have the notes and the rhythms, but we don't really know how they played it - we have to put a lot of our own creativity into it.
``Improvisation is very important to us, and that really takes it out of the realm of what we've come to know as classical music, in which improvisation is not an element anymore. It was originally, but we've lost that element,'' said Reiss in a telephone interview from the group's Arlington office.
Hesperus also does an only slightly less unlikely genre they call ``baroque early American crossover,'' which mixes baroque-era classical music with banjos, fiddles and ragtime music.
Reiss, who is also a founding member of the acclaimed early music group the Folger Consort, said Hesperus began as a conventional baroque chamber music ensemble in 1979. He and founding member Tina Chancey played it pretty straight until 1985, when they began experimenting with early American folk styles of music.
The musician said he was startled to discover the similarities between early European music and American styles such as Appalachian music, Cajun, the blues, vaudeville and ragtime.
Take the blues, for example.
``I saw a kinship in the medieval music I played and particularly in the ways that I chose to play it on the recorder. There's a lot of soul hidden in many of the medieval tunes, especially the secular tunes, the love songs,'' said Reiss.
``The recorder turns out to be a great blues instrument. It's an open-hole flute, and you can use all the pitch ornaments and pitch bending that you hear on the blues harmonica, for instance.''
But does it really work or is it a gimmick? Classical music critic Tim Page makes fun of a phenomenon he calls ``Gunther Schullerism'' (after the famously eclectic American composer). Gunther Schullerism, says Page, is the urge to combine genres that just won't mix - like whaling songs and disco music. Is Hesperus guilty of Gunther Schullerism?
``No,'' said Reiss. ``But that brings up a good point. When I was a student at the [New England] Conservatory [directed by Schuller] he had his ragtime orchestra, and I saw that the problem with most attempts at crossover is people who don't really have the training to play in the other style they're not used to. In a word, it didn't swing.
``That's why whenever Hesperus does any crossover, we do it with somebody who is immersed in that style. So we learn from the inside out rather than from the outside in.''
To that end, the core of Hesperus - Reiss and Chancey - travels with a varying complement of musicians. For their baroque early American crossover dates they play with Appalachian music expert and banjo-picker Bruce Hutton. For tomorrow night's medieval music/blues concert at Roanoke College, they'll be accompanied by blues pianist Mark Kuss.
``Mark is phenomenal. He is amazingly able to reproduce note-for-note the solos of Otis Spann, the Chicago blues piano player - he has the style absolutely down. With him we'll be doing things like taking troubadour songs, 14th-century love songs, and turning them into 12-bar blues.''
With recorder, piano, viola da gamba and other medieval stringed instruments, Hesperus will wail on Elmore James blues numbers such as ``Sunnyland,'' Otis Spann's ``Bloody Murder'' and Muddy Waters' ``Rollin' and Tumblin.'' Not to mention titles more customary for such a combination such as ``De moi dolereus'' by Gillebert de Berneville, ``Dame volstre doulz viaire'' by Guillaume de Machaut and the 14th-century Italian dance ``Istampita Isabella.''
Unless blues played on the gamba and recorder crossover catches on, this may be your only chance to hear Blind Blake and Guillaume de Machaut on the same program. ``We've only been doing this for a year, and we are the first to do it,'' said Reiss. ``There's an element of authenticity with our crossover that few other groups attain.''
by CNB