Dark Cloud: Songs from the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648 The Playfords

• Anonymous:
• 1 Es geht wohl gegen der Sommerzeit 03:09
• Martin Opitz (1597 - 1639):
• 2 Ist Liebe lauter nichts 01:19
• Melchior Franck (1580 - 1639):
• 3 Kein Soldat soll nicht trauren 02:38
• Anonymous:
• 4 Frisch auf in's Feld zu rucken 04:34
• Paul Fleming (1609 - 1640):
• 5 Lob eines Soldaten zu Fuße 02:22
• F.R. Berger:
• 6 Lallekeenig 01:13
• Hofmann von Hoffmannswaldau (1616 - 1679):
• 7 Wo sind die Stunden? 00:59
• Anonymous:
• 8 Es geht ein dunkle Wolk herein 05:13
• Tobias Hume (1569 - 1645):
• 9 First Part of Ayres: No. 13, Death 04:45
• Heinrich Schütz (1585 - 1672):
• 10 Die Erde trinkt für sich, SWV 438 02:13
• Tobias Hume:
• 11 First Part of Ayres: No. 64, A Souldiers Maske 03:51
• Vicentz Rupffenbart:
• 12 Es hat ein Tantzer gsprungen 01:23
• F.R. Berger:
• 13 Ryslaifer 01:40
• Traditional:
• 14 Mit Lust vor wenig Tagen 02:03
• Melchior Kardinal Klesl:
• 15 Es ist kein Schnee gefallen 02:37
• Martin Opitz:
• 16 Schönheit dieser Welt vergeht 00:28
• Anonymous:
• 17 Es ist ein Schnitter heißt der Tod 04:21
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750):
• 18 Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prélude 02:38
• Andreas Gryphius (1616 - 1664):
• 19 Abend 01:28
• Heinrich Schütz:
• 20 O meine Seel, warum bist du betrübet, SWV 419 03:04
• Samuel Scheidt (1587 - 1654):
• 21 Ludi Musici, SSWV 47: Courant Dolorosa 03:14
• Anonymous:
• 22 O übergrosses Hertzenleid 04:45
• Christoph Demantius (1567 - 1643):
• 23 Schwedischer Postbot den verlorenen Tylli zu suchen 04:31
• Caspar Othmayr (1515 - 1553):
• 24 Der Schwartenhals / Wo soll ich mich hinkehren 03:34
• Total Runtime 01:08:02

Info for Dark Cloud: Songs from the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648

The Playfords are dedicated to creating authentic and innovative interpretations of Renaissance and early Baroque dance music. Using historical instruments, they perform early music in new arrangements that start with spontaneous improvisation and reach completed form after a process of cooperative work with dance experts and after a great deal of live performance.

Björn Werner, vocals
Annegret Fischer, recorders
Benjamin Dressler, viola da gamba
Nora Thiele, percussion
Erik Warkenthin, baroque guitar, lute, chitarrone

The Playfords
developed a distinctive authentic, innovative and danceable Early Music Style over the last 20 years of their existence. They are one of the few ensembles improvising extempore on stage and thus embody truthfully authenticity of historically informed performance. Their sources of creativity are music, texts and life of the 16th and 17th century in Europe and beyond. History, tradition & evergreens are woven into holistic concept programmes and blossom in new arrangements.

Early music, Folk, Pop, Jazz, non-European Music, Poetry, Dance, Art, Visual Arts and Theater are metamorphosed into I n s p i r e d E a r l y M u s i c .

The five-headed ensemble is named after John and Henry Playford’s collection “The English Dancing Master” (1651). A Real Book of it’s time providing notated Hit-melodies on fitting dance steps. Harmonies and Bass were to be improvised by the performing musicians, their essential character determined by those own predilections and particular talents. This was a welcome challenge to any virtuosic musician’s creativity – then as well as now.

The Playfords have performed regularly at international festivals since 2005, including as part of the “Oude Muziek Utrecht” Fringe festival, at the Gewandhaus Leipzig, Schloss Tirol, MDR-Musiksommer, Bach-Biennale Weimar, Stockstädter Blockflötenfesttage, Philharmonie Berlin, Konzerthaus Berlin, to Belarus in cooperation with Goethe Institut and at the EXPO 2015 in Milan and many more. So far six CDs have been released at Coviello Classics, Raumklang and DHM.

With their yearly Playgroundfestival of early music folk in Weimar the format of “Early Music Jam Sessions” and different crossover programmes with Latin, Iraqi, English, Italian, German, Austrian and Dutch Musicians have been created (Latin Baroque, Shakespeare’s Musicke & Dounce, Trialogue of Religions, L’Arte da Vinci).

Booklet for Dark Cloud: Songs from the Thirty Years' War 1618-1648