Fortuna Antiqua Et Ultra - Medieval Songs Of Fate, Fortune A

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Fortuna Antiqua et Ultra - Medieval Songs of Fate, Fortune and Fin'amor Product Description

Fortuna Antiqua et Ultra was first performed in 2018 at a Gothic Arts Interdisciplinary Symposium hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. The symposium's opening description contained a quote from Thomas Aquinas: 'Art is the imitation of nature. Works of art are successful to the extent that they achieve a likeness of nature.' It is in this vein that our program has developed since its nascent performance, evolving in scope against a backdrop of turbulent politics and global health crisis. The last year has given us all ample time to reflect on the quality of our own lives and the turbulent peaks and valleys fortune brings. While the pandemic at hand has presented many of us with such large-scale difficulty for the first time in our lives, individuals living in the Middle Ages were no strangers to trying times, and this is well-documented in primary source material. Manipulating every aspect of life and love, Goddess Fortuna has provided poet, composer, and artist alike with subject matter for ages. Fortune's iconic wheel, lifting the fallen and casting down the mighty based on nothing more than an ever-changing whim, is a familiar trope – no less relevant today than it was in the Middle Ages. Fortuna Antiqua et Ultra centers around texts that depict struggle, coping, and resilience during life's trying times viewed through a medieval lens. In the 12th and 13th centuries, troubadours and trouveres composed songs of fin'amor, depicting a spiritual transcendence born of one’s desire for and complete devotion to the subject of their affection, even though blocked by insurmountable circumstances. This transcendence vis-à-vis fin'amor became a poetic mantra by which the lover ascends to a higher plane of existence. Fortune often appears in troubadour and trouvere lyrics as the active force – whether a help or a hindrance – on the lover's path. Respite from fickle Fortune’s vacillating intervention comes by way of Hope; the only way to combat Fortune’s ups and downs is to remain hopeful for the subversion of Desire en route to a higher plane of existence. These three elements – the inexplicable actions of Fortune, an underpinning of Desire, and the consolation of Hope – provide the bulk of the thematic content of this program. Of course, many turned to religious institutions for comfort during life's ups and downs, as is often described in medieval lyrics, and for those living outside of privileged culture, the ups were often fewer and farther between than the downs, especially during the long thirteenth century. But even the church didn’t always provide solace in misfortune. These themes are self-evident in many of the lyrics presented on this program, all of which are drawn from the period spanning the musical ars antiqua, ars nova and ars subtilior, with one late medieval / early renaissance example from 15th-century composer, Guillaume DuFay. It seems humankind has always searched for an answer to the question: How do we deal with the unpredictable hardships Fortuna presents? Can true love for another carry us through? Or, is it faith in a deity and a church that provides a sense of strength and comfort? If that doesn’t hold up, perhaps an unrelenting and optimistic sense of hope will do. And if that still doesn't do the trick, maybe all we can do is accept our fate and relinquish control. It’s an ever-present question, then and now. So, why take time out of our busy lives to think about this music and these texts? With all that is going on in our country and in our world – global pandemic, corrupt politics, a failed relationship, any valley one experiences in personal or professional life – we must remain hopeful no matter what uncontrollable circumstances Fortune presents. Without hope for a better future, we allow ourselves to be defeated by the inevitable downturns of life. [Christopher Preston Thompson]

About the Artist

Founded in 2012, Concordian Dawn specializes in 12th- through 14th-century vocal