Yardley puts life into old and alien music

David Yardley and soprano Emma Griffiths perform at the National Portrait Gallery.

Music

David Yardley - harp, Emma Griffiths - soprano

The National Portrait Gallery

June 2, 2024

Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD

David Yardley is a performer of medieval troubadour songs, sung in the countertenor range while accompanying himself on a replica 13th century harp. 

Some of his material uses texts and melodies from the medieval period, some are texts both old and new set to music written by Yardley in a medieval style. 

The foyer of the National Portrait Gallery is not an obvious performance space, with gallery visitors moving through with conversations going on and further complicated by the provision of easels and drawing board with an invitation to visitors to sketch the performer as he sings. The space does have, however, a lively acoustic for this kind of music, with the winter sun streaming in through the high windows.

The original medieval material can sometimes sound very old and alien. Yardley’s performance of an anonymous Trouvere song Li Chastelains de Couci Ama Tant suggests that musicians of the 12th and 13th century heard scales, modes and melodies in quite a different way. At the same time these ancient songs sit quite comfortably beside his own setting of a modern poem by Emma Roxanas, Frozen Fens, which would not sound out of place in a recital of contemporary art songs, though perhaps with an expanded accompaniment.

Yardley included soprano Emma Griffiths for two songs. The first was a duet of sorts with the two alternating verses in another Trouvere song from the 13th century and the second was the setting by Yardley of a 14th century English text, ending on a couple of wonderfully high and sustained notes from Griffiths. She has a voice that sounds more folk singer than operatic soprano, strong and confident, with hints of the great Hungarian singer Marta Sebesten in the quality of her singing.

These medieval songs are quite a limited musical form, being essentially monophonic and the small harp being of restricted compass. They do tend to sound a bit the same. 

For all that, Yardley is an engaging performer with an obvious passion for, and understanding of, the genre though with this kind of performance, it would look better without the music stand.

First published at Canberra City News, June 3, 2024

LEAVE A REPLY

ONE RESPONSE TO YARDLEY PUTS LIFE INTO OLD AND ALIEN MUSIC

Tony Magee says: 4 June 2024 at 12:16am

Oh how I wish I’d been at this concert. When studying music at the tertiary level in the early 1980s, my favourite subject was Mediaeval and Renaissance music history, presented to us each week at the School of Music by Professor Warren Bebbington. The amount of research and preparation he did for each lecture was massive and his knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject was infectious. I absorbed it all like a sponge. 

We spent many a lesson studying the music of the northern French Trouveres and the Troubadours of Southern France, Spain and Italy that Graham mentions in his review. But there was a third group: In Germany, they were known as Minnesinger. And the most famous of them was a young minstrel named Walther von der Vogelweide (c. 1170 – c. 1230). 

Now, one of the other most valuable things I learned in studying to be a secondary school music teacher, was that in formulating a lesson plan, it was essential to start, in your mind, with “What is your motivator?” ie: what will I do or say when I enter the classroom to maximise grabbing the attention of these teenagers? 

And so one day, with my year ten elective music students, I just walked in and said loudly and with a grin on my face – “Walther von der Vogelweide”. “What?” they said. “Walther von der Vogelweide,” I repeated. “What’s that?” they asked. “It’s a real name, of a real person – a musician,” I replied, and the lesson proceeded from there. It was such a funny sounding name. 

As the week progressed, some of the staff would stop me in the corridors and say “What are you teaching those kids in your music lessons? They’re all wandering around the school saying some weird German name!” 

I miss those days.