Blue Heron Renaissance Choir to perform 15th century love songs from Wellesley’s Special Collections

This Saturday at 8 p.m. in Houghton Chapel, the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir will perform "A 15th Century Cabaret," a selection of love songs from the Wellesley College Music Library's recently acquired facsimile of the "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme." The facsimile, also known as "Le Chansonnier de Jean de Montchenu," is a copy of a 15th century, French heart-shaped songbook that suitably contains love songs. Additionally, the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir will sing a piece from an Italian 15th century gradual, a book of antiphons sung between the Epistle and the Gospel at the Eucharist, that was donated by Henry Fowle Durant, the founder of Wellesley College. Both "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme" and the gradual belong to Wellesley College's Rare Books Collection and will be displayed to the public after the performance.

Founded in 1999 by Music Director Scott Metcalfe, the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir vocal ensemble focuses on English and Franco-Flemish music from the 15th century. In keeping with this focus, "A 15th Century Cabaret" will cover six composers from "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme" and a benediction from the gradual. To prepare for the concert, the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir studied "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme" and the gradual in detail for a historically accurate performance. Five singers and three instrumentalists from the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir will perform on Saturday. Three of the performers, Aaron Sheehan, Laura Jeppesen and Tom Zajac, are Wellesley College Music Department faculty.

Wellesley's "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme" is a facsimile of the original, which is currently located in the National Library of France. In the late 1400s, Jean de Montchenu, a priest who later became Bishop of Agen and Bishop of Viviers, commissioned "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme." The elaborately illuminated facsimile is cordiform, or heart-shaped, whether closed or open. When opened, the two hearts also reflect "Le Chansonnier Cordiforme's" focus on two lovers in its songs. The facsimile contains 43 songs, which are mostly in French, though one is in Spanish and a few are in Italian. The composers featured in "Le Chansonneir Cordiforme" include Guillaume Du Fay, Gilles Binchois, Antoine Busnoys, Johannes Ockeghem, Robert Morton and Walter Frye.

Wellesley's gradual, an original from the Italian Renaissance, is an extensive and massive text—it is around two feet tall and almost 300 pages long. Historically, graduals were this size so that an entire choir could gather around the gradual to sing, rather than giving each member of the choir an expensive individual text. On Saturday evening, the Blue Heron Renaissance Choir will faithfully sing a benediction in this tradition, gathering around the gradual to read the music. This will mark the first time audiences hear the gradual's songs since its arrival at Wellesley College in 1878.

Both "Le Chansonnier Cardiforme" and the gradual are works of art in their own right. The many pages are intricately illuminated and elegantly gilded with depictions including creatures of fancy, lovers and flowers. As part of Wellesley's Special Collections, located in the Margaret Clapp Library, these artifacts belong to an extensive collection of rare books, manuscripts and limited editions. Special Collections is made up of specific collections ranging from the Durant Collection, which consists of 7,600 books donated by Durant and his wife in 1875, to the English Poetry Collection, comprising of over 12,000 volumes and an impressive amount of autograph letters and manuscripts, to the Ruskin Collection, a collection focused entirely on John Ruskin's works.

Students may access the Special Collections Mondays to Fridays, from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.