Orpheus' Lyre (2000)

Folger Consort performed Orpheus' Lyre from March 31 to April 2, 2000 at the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre. While Renaissance composers strove for expression within the constraints of their polyphonic style, the avant-garde humanists at the end of the 16th century discarded that style completely in favor of daring new expressive techniques. Returning to Italy, the Consort picked up the thread of poetry and music at the dawn of the radically new style of the Baroque. Voices and instruments combined in the exciting concertato style pioneered by Monteverdi and his contemporaries, in performance of theatrical arias and brilliant early sonatas and canzonas for strings and winds.

Claudio Monteverdi – master musician summing up the best of the Renaissance and the early Baroque

Ellen Hargis's "voice is beautiful, her intonation exact, her enunciation clear, her coloratura fiery and clean." Boston Globe

Jolle Greenleaf "sang with agility, expressiveness and clear, light tone..." Washington Post

David Douglass presents “revelatory performances on the Renaissance violin.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Artists

Folger Consort

Artistic Directors

• Robert Eisenstein: viols
• Christopher Kendall

Guest artists

• Grant Herreid: theorbo
• Scott Reiss: recorders
• David Douglass: violin
• Webb Wiggins: organ, harpsichord
• Ellen Hargis: soprano
• Jolle Greenleaf: soprano