The Newberry Consort will re-create the music performed at the Feast of the Pheasant, a lavish banquet presented by the Duke of Burgundy in 1454.
The original feast was held to promote a crusade against the Turks, who had taken possession of Constantinople the previous year.
Contemporary accounts describe an event of great splendor, with music by Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois and others.
The consort will perform this music at three Chicago-area locations: the Newberry Library, Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, on February 7, 8 and 9. Known as one of the finest early music ensembles in Chicago, the Newberry Consort is affiliated with the Newberry Library.
Pre-concert lectures will shed more light on the music and entertainments of the feast. More information about the program, itself, is available at newberryconsort.org.
Classicalite recently spoke with the consort's co-director, David Douglass, about the specifics.
"The Duke, Philip the Good, arranged quite a spectacle for his guests," Douglass said. Among the entertainments were dragons flying through the hall, backwards-marching horses and an enormous pastry with 24 musicians inside.
Were the guests expected to eat the pastry to free the musicians? Douglass admitted that sources are vague on this point.
"We're not sure. Maybe the musicians got to eat their way out!"
The spectacles of the feast culminated in the entrance of a giant leading an elephant. "On top of the elephant, there was a miniature castle, and inside the castle was a woman, representing the Holy Church, who sang a song," Douglass said.
"Her song," Douglass noted, "was a lament of the Church, Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae."
Based on these descriptions, there's one thing you can say about the Duke of Burgundy: He had an awesome sense of the theatrical.
The Newberry Consort will perform the music from these spectacles, but don't expect them to bring in any elephants or castles. Unfortunately, the consort's passion for authentic performance does not extend to pastries or pachyderms.
Douglass said that the inspiration for the program came from the memoirs of people who attended the feast, in particular Olivier de la Marche. "He described the event in detail in his memoirs and mentions several pieces by name," said Douglass.
The consort will project excerpts from de la Marche's memoirs on a backdrop during the performance, as well as images of paintings and tapestries from the period, to evoke the experience of the feast and its social and political milieu.
The Consort strives to present early music as much as possible in the context in which it was originally performed.
"Our presentation will place the music in its social and political context, which will enhance your understanding of the music and what it felt like to be there in that moment," Douglass said.
As for the pheasant of the title? Contrary to what you might think, pheasant was not the main dish of the banquet. Rather, the noblemen swore an oath on the pheasant that they would undertake the crusade to liberate Constantinople.
"It was customary to swear oaths on a spectacular bird, such as a live swan or pheasant. The bird was the symbol that was to be sworn on," Douglass explained.
After mounting such a lavish spectacle, and swearing such an oath, it's disappointing to learn that the proposed crusade never actually happened.
But it's lucky for us that some of the music, at least, survived.
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