Barefoot Chamber Concerts (“an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality” – San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events.
Barefoot’s February concert features the house band, the eponymous and celebrated Hallifax & Jeffrey (Peter Hallifax and Julie Jeffrey), viols, with fabulous guest John Lenti, lutenist to the stars, in a concert that pits two musical giants of the early 1600s, Tobias Hume and John Dowland, against each other.
Dowland and Hume clearly despised each other, but served the same monarch and “fought” in the same musical arena, the Jacobean court system.
Dowland was the pre-eminent lutenist of his generation, travelled widely in Europe, but published much music in England. He played the lute, wrote lute music, lute songs, and instrumental music involving the lute. He was also a consummate (and published) theorist, highly skilled at complex counterpoint, and as a composer, elegant to a fault.
Tobias Hume, a Scot brought to England with the court of James I (aka James VI of Scotland), was a viol player, a composer of music for the viol, of consorts involving viols, and songs with viol accompaniments. He also travelled widely on the continent, and published his music in London. He seems to have been an autodidact, and ignored many of the rules of music theorists. His music is idiosyncratic, hilarious, whimsical.
Dowland was a spy. Hume was a soldier. Does that explain the difference? They both complained of the other man’s pretensions, and scorned each other.
It can fairly be said, that neither man had the success they deserved in their lifetimes, but both are regarded today as pioneers of their instruments and compositional geniuses.
This concert features music for viols (by Hume) music for lute (by Dowland) and some of each man’s music played on viols with a lute. A fascinating window into early 17th century musical life and strife.