Katherina Weyssin's blog

Another lovely session: long and intense, and very productive. Thanks for hosting it, Anna.

O my heart

A warm-up song. We tried a somewhat unconventional arrangement of voices today: Anna singing the top (soprano) line alone, Christine and William de Cameron singing the middle (tenor) line, with Christine an octave higher than William, and Katherina attempting the bass line an octave higher than it is set, in the alto range.

It was a surprisingly pleasant setting of the song, as well as an effective warm-up.

Today we took a break from our Christmas shopping to make our first attempt at Gush forth my tears, a very pretty Holborne piece, that is more rhythmically challenging that the pieces we've tried as a group so far.

My love hath vowed

A pleasant warm-up, as always.

Il Bianco e dolce cigno is significantly harder than anything we've tried to date, but we made a good attempt on it.

Range testing

We started with the rather intimidating process of checking our ranges, one by one, to determine who should be singing which part. We'll try again in six months or a year to see if our ranges have increased with practice. Thanks Anna, Caterine, Eleanor and William de Cameron for giving this a go! (William de Wyke and Catalina - we should try this when you are well).

For the last formal class of the year, we decided to fit in as much dancing as possible in two and a bit hours: a miniature ball. We didn't dress up, and we allowed space to repeat dances that we'd struggled with the first time through. The five of us took turns at requesting dances.Present: Anna de Wilde, Katherine of Glastonbury, Eleanor Hall, William de Cameron, Katherina Weyssin

Thanks, Caterine, for offering your house, since William and Catalina were not able to be our hosts today. We had a most productive session.

Laudemus Virginem

Done in the usual way, as our warm-up.

Verbum caro factum est

Eleanor's first time on this piece. We tried all three verses, quite successfully, and for the first time. Anna, Caterine and Eleanor on the top line, William de Cameron and Katherina on the second.

A return to So ben mi chi ha buon tempo, and some calf-stretching work on our 15th-century Italian technique.

We managed a little singing as we finished sewing skirts, and even a new piece.

Our first substantive session working on So ben mi chi ha buon tempo.

Laudemus Virginem, My love hath vowed, Contrapunto Bestiale alla mente.

John Minsheu produced a Spanish-English dictionary in the late 16thC, revised and re-published in the early 17th. King's College, London has a searchable facsimile online as part of their Early Modern Spain site.

Since it's come up in conversation a few times recently, I thought I'd add it to the website.