WrenSong

An a cappella group surprises and delights.

This piece first appeared in The Vermont Standard.

The wren, with its somber plumage, is an unassuming bird, often unnoticed, until it opens its long, delicately curved beak to sing. Its melodies can be arresting and intricate; the depth and volume of its warble seem impossible for so tiny a body. The Woodstock-area singers Wrensong take their name, partly, from the surprisingly vibrant bird.   Last Sunday afternoon, the group’s nine black-clad singers filed quietly into the chancel of Woodstock’s Unitarian Universalist church, and shortly filled it up with the sophisticated counterpoint of a Renaissance-era repertoire.

Their nineteen a cappella selections were mostly 16th and 17th century madrigals, a musical genre that originated in Italy, then spread to other parts of Europe. Outside of sacred music, madrigals were “the wow form of the time,” and tremendously popular, says Oliver Goodenough, a tenor with Wrensong; thousands of madrigals were written. They’re songs, but are often not of the conventional repeat-the-melody-with-each-stanza-type arrangement. In fully developed compositions, every verse has its own, unique music.

The pieces have individual parts for soprano, alto, baritone, and so on, but they aren’t strictly harmonies. “There are homophonic sections where the group all sings the same words at the same time,” explains Goodenough, “and polyphonic sections where they go into very individualized parts.” The most skillful composers combined homophonic and polyphonic approaches, alternating them in ways that created complex textures. And the compositions also use “word painting,” a technique that has the music underscoring the lyrics, so that they “cooperate to make a unified point,” adds Goddenough. In a song with words about someone wondering up and down across hill and dale, for example, the vocal notes go up and down as well. The most difficult, carefully crafted pieces may require several months of rehearsals to get the tempo, intonation, and phrasing just right. The end result, though, says Goodenough, can have “a particular charm and high artistic content.”

Another notable characteristic of madrigals is their often playful subject matter. “Some of the pieces we perform are laments and ballads,” says Elizabeth Harley, a Wrensong soprano, “but there are a lot of droll and bawdy songs, too.” Sunday’s loved-themed program started with Flora Gave Me Fairest Flowers, a tune that begins with a young man presenting a bouquet to his sweetheart, and ends with “smiling meadows seem to say, ‘come ye wantons here to play.’” Later in the program, Motonna Mia Cara has a German soldier singing and pleading in broken Italian, promising a young lady a night to remember. And Wrensong performed a number written by one of history’s most infamous playboys and partiers, King Henry VIII of England. In Pastime with Good Company, his majesty writes of hunting and singing and dancing; after all, “youth must have some dalliance,” he says.

Wrensong was born in 2005, when five members of the Woodstock St. James Episcopal Church choir were yearning for more ensemble-type singing. They all loved to sing, and even more, they loved to sign with each other. At first, the group met and rehearsed purely for their own enjoyment. It wasn’t until 2007 that they presented their first official concert, at the Norman Williams Library.

Over the years, the group’s number has drifted up and down, but the original five, tenor Goodenough of Woodstock, soprano Harley of Reading, basses David Clark of Quechee and Frank Fields of Taftsville, and alto Helen Clark of Quechee all still sing with the group. Now they are joined by soprano Miriam Langner of Putney, alto Emily Jones of Woodstock, and baritones Tyler Hartwell of Bethel and John Severinghaus of Norwich. The group is professionally diverse, two run an advertising agency, plus there’s a psychiatrist, an attorney and law school professor, a teacher, a photographer and former teacher, an antiques dealer, a builder and former legislator, and a retired architect. They all share, though, rich, nearly life-long involvements with music, most particularly with singing. It’s the camaraderie and shared goals that keep them coming to rehearsals week after week. “Part of it is just the fun of coming together with friends,” says Goodenough, “but the fun of coming together with friends to do something that is a piece of beauty…is tremendous.”

Wrensong performs publically a few times a year. This past December, for example, they sang a program of carols for Woodstock’s Wassail Weekend house tour. Coming up in April, the group will sing for a Saturday morning prayer service at Harvard’s Appleton Chapel, and will perform in a start-of-the-day program for the Vermont State Legislature. They’re also planning a May Day concert at the Alumni Hall Cultural and Interpretive Center in Haverhill, New Hampshire. They sing at weddings and other private events as well.