Fortunes of Love (2000)
Folger Consort performed Fortunes of Love from February 11 to February 13, 2000 at the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre. The capricious spinning of Lady Fortune’s wheel is a constant theme of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. In the 14th-century Remede de Fortune, Guillaume de Machaut’s lovesick Poet complains charmingly about Fortune until Lady Hope intercedes on his behalf. Renaissance instrumental pieces and chansons, some built on the tune Fortuna Desperata, followed. The concert concluded with English lute ayres and country dances from Shakespeare’s time, in which our changeable Lady proves her unchanging fascination for singers and poets.
This Valentine’s Day program was presented in conjunction with the Folger Library’s millennium exhibition Fortune: All is But Fortune which was on view in the Great Hall from January 21 through June 10, 2000.
Guillaume Machaut – master of French 14th-century music and lyric poetry
Johana Arnold "had flawless diction as well as sweet, well-focused and precisely controlled tone." Washington Post
Mark Bleeke "brought the earthy humor in ... the songs and the exalted spirit..." Washington Post
Artists
Folger Consort
Artistic Directors
- Robert Eisenstein: viol, vielle
- Christopher Kendall: lute, citole, harp
Guest artists
- David Douglass: violin, vielle
- Johana Arnold: soprano
- Mark Bleeke: tenor