Andrew Lawrence-King
Baroque opera & orchestral director, Early Harp virtuoso and imaginative continuo-player, specialist in baroque gesture and Historical Action, Andrew Lawrence-King is one of the world’s leading performers of Early Music and the most recorded harpist of all time.
In 2012, he won the Golden Mask, Russia’s top theatrical award, for the first opera, Cavalieri’s Anima e Corpo (1600) at the Natalya Satz Theatre. In 2013, he directed (stage & music) the first performance in modern times in Spain of the earliest Spanish Oratorio (1704), and the first staged production in modern times of Landi’s La Morte d’Orfeo (1619). Last year he directed the first-ever performance in Russia of Monteverdi’s Vespers.
As harp soloist, Andrew won the 2011 Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance in Dinastia Borgia directed by Jordi Savall: in 2013 his duo recital with Jordi won Australia’s prestigious Helpmann Award for Chamber Music Performance. From 2011-2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow for the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, investigating Early Opera and Music & Consciousness.
Andrew Lawrence-King’s ensemble, The Harp Consort, combines state-of-the art early music performance with stylish improvisation and entertaining stage presentation. Andrew Lawrence-King also directs the opera production company Il Corago, researching, performing and teaching Historical Action. Andrew is an RYA Ocean Yachtmaster, a student of 17th-century Italian Rapier, and a qualified hypnotist.
http://about.me/continuo
In 2012, he won the Golden Mask, Russia’s top theatrical award, for the first opera, Cavalieri’s Anima e Corpo (1600) at the Natalya Satz Theatre. In 2013, he directed (stage & music) the first performance in modern times in Spain of the earliest Spanish Oratorio (1704), and the first staged production in modern times of Landi’s La Morte d’Orfeo (1619). Last year he directed the first-ever performance in Russia of Monteverdi’s Vespers.
As harp soloist, Andrew won the 2011 Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance in Dinastia Borgia directed by Jordi Savall: in 2013 his duo recital with Jordi won Australia’s prestigious Helpmann Award for Chamber Music Performance. From 2011-2015 he was Senior Visiting Research Fellow for the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, investigating Early Opera and Music & Consciousness.
Andrew Lawrence-King’s ensemble, The Harp Consort, combines state-of-the art early music performance with stylish improvisation and entertaining stage presentation. Andrew Lawrence-King also directs the opera production company Il Corago, researching, performing and teaching Historical Action. Andrew is an RYA Ocean Yachtmaster, a student of 17th-century Italian Rapier, and a qualified hypnotist.
http://about.me/continuo
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Papers by Andrew Lawrence-King
On November 13th 1664, Samuel Pepys spent the afternoon reciting ‘To be or not to be’, and in the 1680s, guitarist Cesare Morelli set the soliloquy to music for him, as an
Italian-style Recitative.
Now opera director Andrew Lawrence-King applies to Morelli’s setting new insights into the performance of 17th-century Italian Recitative, in order to reveal for modern actors, directors and scholars hidden secrets of period declamation in Shakespearian speech.
Musical notation may be the closest we can ever approach to a recording of Shakespeare himself speaking.
In 1601, song-composer Caccini proclaimed the Baroque priorities of his ‘New Music’ as ‘Speech and Rhythm’. In Baroque speech and music, Rhetoric aims to ‘move the passions’. Leonarda’s precise notations contradict 20th-century assumptions that performers choose their own tempo, or that expressiveness requires rubato.
Poetic detail, moving passions, vocal effects, contrasts of tempo, expressive gestures: Leonarda does ‘act with the hand, act with the heart’. The composer’s hand notates subtle tempo changes, in which the serene movement of the Divine Hand is reflected in the diverse pulse-rates of a lover’s human heart. Violinists’ and continuo-players’ hands give life to instrumental music, a microcosm of heavenly perfection, yet swayed by the human passions of the Four Humours. All this is guided by Tactus and expressed by gestures.
Invisible to her 17th-century listeners, almost unnoticed by musicologists until recently, women’s hands are the heart and soul of Leonarda’s music.
An extended version of this article is published online at http://andrewlawrenceking.com/2020/08/20/leonarda/
So, whilst you are putting in the time to internalise the collected wisdom of Quintilian, Bulwer & Bonifacio, to memorise the complete works of Shakespeare and/or to translate all the ‘opera’ libretti from Anima e Corpo (1600) to Poppea (1643), to learn all of Negri’s courtly dances, and to become a rapier-master according to Capo Ferro, here are some quick and easy short-cuts, literally from the ground up.
17th-century priorities guided Andrew Lawrence-King's 5-year investigation at the Australian Research Council's Centre for the History of Emotions and with IL CORAGO, the production company for historical staging. With a unique combination of academic rigour, unified focus, practitioner expertise and international scope, this program applied historical research to the development of new training methods for modern performers in some 2 dozen award-winning productions of Early Modern music-dramas and Historical Action worldwide.
The posted paper includes open access links to documentary films, videos and further articles.
In this first of two parts, I’m considering the similarities between Flow and The Zone, as two of the many different manifestations of Hypnotic trance. I’m arguing for very careful use of language, but not for the sake of a more rigorous theoretical discussion. The narrow definitions of some terms are highly contentious, so I’m deliberately accepting broad definitions in order to sidestep those theoretical debates. But I suggest that precise choice of terminology is vital, for utterly practical reasons.
Actually, he only mentions sprezzatura twice, in the whole Preface. He only uses it once, in all his extensive music examples. Sprezzatura was not his priority. Sprezzatura was applied only to whatever did not matter. In contrast, he talks much more about divisions and exclamations, and he uses these much more in his example songs. His priorities were text and rhythm.
But there is one other concept that he discusses far more than any other. Caccini’s text is dominated by the interlinked concepts of affetto (passion, or a passionate ornament) and effetto (a passionate ornament or the effect of such an ornament on the listener’s passions). He mentions affetto and its derivatives 32 times: include the 8 occurrences of effetto, and this interlinked concept has 40 hits. There is also an exclamatione affettuosa in the first of the three example songs.
This suggests that what is really ‘new’ about the nuove musiche is Caccini’s focus on passion (affetto), combined with the linking of such passion to a particular class of ornaments (affetti/effetti) and to the emotional effect on the listener (effetto).
Caccini does not equate sprezzatura with free rhythm.
The priorities for Caccini and the Camerata are Text & Rhythm. Sound is the lowest priority. Castiglione indicates that sprezzatura is applied to low-priority elements, suggesting that Caccini’s sprezzatura should be applied to Sound. Caccini’s phrases are sprezzatura di canto and canto in sprezzatura. He associates sprezzatura with ‘almost speaking’.
Caccini’s sprezzatura is a nonchalant voice-production that is ‘almost speaking’.
On November 13th 1664, Samuel Pepys spent the afternoon reciting ‘To be or not to be’, and in the 1680s, guitarist Cesare Morelli set the soliloquy to music for him, as an
Italian-style Recitative.
Now opera director Andrew Lawrence-King applies to Morelli’s setting new insights into the performance of 17th-century Italian Recitative, in order to reveal for modern actors, directors and scholars hidden secrets of period declamation in Shakespearian speech.
Musical notation may be the closest we can ever approach to a recording of Shakespeare himself speaking.
In 1601, song-composer Caccini proclaimed the Baroque priorities of his ‘New Music’ as ‘Speech and Rhythm’. In Baroque speech and music, Rhetoric aims to ‘move the passions’. Leonarda’s precise notations contradict 20th-century assumptions that performers choose their own tempo, or that expressiveness requires rubato.
Poetic detail, moving passions, vocal effects, contrasts of tempo, expressive gestures: Leonarda does ‘act with the hand, act with the heart’. The composer’s hand notates subtle tempo changes, in which the serene movement of the Divine Hand is reflected in the diverse pulse-rates of a lover’s human heart. Violinists’ and continuo-players’ hands give life to instrumental music, a microcosm of heavenly perfection, yet swayed by the human passions of the Four Humours. All this is guided by Tactus and expressed by gestures.
Invisible to her 17th-century listeners, almost unnoticed by musicologists until recently, women’s hands are the heart and soul of Leonarda’s music.
An extended version of this article is published online at http://andrewlawrenceking.com/2020/08/20/leonarda/
So, whilst you are putting in the time to internalise the collected wisdom of Quintilian, Bulwer & Bonifacio, to memorise the complete works of Shakespeare and/or to translate all the ‘opera’ libretti from Anima e Corpo (1600) to Poppea (1643), to learn all of Negri’s courtly dances, and to become a rapier-master according to Capo Ferro, here are some quick and easy short-cuts, literally from the ground up.
17th-century priorities guided Andrew Lawrence-King's 5-year investigation at the Australian Research Council's Centre for the History of Emotions and with IL CORAGO, the production company for historical staging. With a unique combination of academic rigour, unified focus, practitioner expertise and international scope, this program applied historical research to the development of new training methods for modern performers in some 2 dozen award-winning productions of Early Modern music-dramas and Historical Action worldwide.
The posted paper includes open access links to documentary films, videos and further articles.
In this first of two parts, I’m considering the similarities between Flow and The Zone, as two of the many different manifestations of Hypnotic trance. I’m arguing for very careful use of language, but not for the sake of a more rigorous theoretical discussion. The narrow definitions of some terms are highly contentious, so I’m deliberately accepting broad definitions in order to sidestep those theoretical debates. But I suggest that precise choice of terminology is vital, for utterly practical reasons.
Actually, he only mentions sprezzatura twice, in the whole Preface. He only uses it once, in all his extensive music examples. Sprezzatura was not his priority. Sprezzatura was applied only to whatever did not matter. In contrast, he talks much more about divisions and exclamations, and he uses these much more in his example songs. His priorities were text and rhythm.
But there is one other concept that he discusses far more than any other. Caccini’s text is dominated by the interlinked concepts of affetto (passion, or a passionate ornament) and effetto (a passionate ornament or the effect of such an ornament on the listener’s passions). He mentions affetto and its derivatives 32 times: include the 8 occurrences of effetto, and this interlinked concept has 40 hits. There is also an exclamatione affettuosa in the first of the three example songs.
This suggests that what is really ‘new’ about the nuove musiche is Caccini’s focus on passion (affetto), combined with the linking of such passion to a particular class of ornaments (affetti/effetti) and to the emotional effect on the listener (effetto).
Caccini does not equate sprezzatura with free rhythm.
The priorities for Caccini and the Camerata are Text & Rhythm. Sound is the lowest priority. Castiglione indicates that sprezzatura is applied to low-priority elements, suggesting that Caccini’s sprezzatura should be applied to Sound. Caccini’s phrases are sprezzatura di canto and canto in sprezzatura. He associates sprezzatura with ‘almost speaking’.
Caccini’s sprezzatura is a nonchalant voice-production that is ‘almost speaking’.