Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre

My friend Emma Jane Hyde has recommended to me the music of Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre. A quick google shows her to have been a very exciting composer and musician and there's a lovely portrait of her too, holding a sheet of music she was composing. Really love the hair, very high, like a beehive.

Bit of a prodigy she played before Louis XIV at the age of five and carried on. This is a great quote about how she was a real creative type, couldn't help improvising, from her contemporary Titon du Tillot who praises her 'marvellous facility for playing preludes and fantasies off the cuff. Sometimes she improvises one or another for a whole half hour with tunes and harmonies of great variety'. Harpsichord improvisation. Nice.

I will have a listen to her pieces played on Youtube and post something later. Isn't it wonderful finding about this brilliant women of early modern music? I think so anyway.

Anne Ford - music, and being unconventional, can save your head ...

After writing about Francesca Caccini, I thought I might dally my toes for a little while in some of the history of rather interesting female musicians and poets.

I have been an admirer of the very unconventional Ann Ford for some time. She played the viola da gamba, and English guitar and defied her father to perform in public.

Her infatuated lover wanted her to become his mistress and when she refused, he tried to sabotage her concerts. What an arsehole. How typical.

Anyway she ended up getting married as it helped her do what she really wanted to do. Unfortunately, when they were travelling to Italy, her husband died in Boulogne. This was the middle of the Reign of Terror and she got imprisoned. I'm not quite sure how these two facts are related, but never mind. The important fact in my opnion was that she was later released under a pardon for prisoners that could prove they could earn their living. Hurrah for her being a professional musician. Three hurrahs!

Fortunately she was painted by Thomas Gainsborough. This was just as well, as I expect I would never have heard of her otherwise.

Francesca Caccini and Modern Floods

I have been listening to Francesca Caccini's music on Lucie Skeaping's Early Music Show on BBC R3 and am so taken away with her melody and expressive ornamentation.

The word painting of this incipient operatic style is so breathtaking. This use of an emotionally affective solo vocal over a simple chordal accompaniment is very relevant to modern singer songwriters as well.

Here's the famous painting of Francesca.















Also, this morning at work I have been shotlisting aftermath of floods. So I have written some lyrics which relate to this experience, and intend to set them to an ornamented, emotionally affective vocal line over cello and uke.
Francesca and the Caccini family, thank you all for this inspiration.

Here are the simple lyrics. I love this idea, but have yet to see if it works in practice. I am convinced it will.

FLOOD SONG
It all happened so fast
I can't even put it into words
So much damage has been done
Everything that we had built is gone

We are left here with the water
And our neighbours who hug us
For they too have lost everything
And have no insurance

Too late for sandbags
In our rubber dinghy
We paddle the streets
Watching the rescue workers in waterproof clothing
outside the block of flats

They carry our old friend into the ambulance.
We talk, and wade and stand
And hold each other