Harmonia
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Rita Taylor
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Courtesy of the artist.
Since 2018, Early Music America has hosted its Emerging Artists Showcase, a series presenting the rising stars of early music and historical performance. This hour on Harmonia, we’ll hear from 2025 laureate Charlotte Tang, whose program transports us to a fashionable drawing room in nineteenth-century England.
About
Today’s performers bring to life the music of the distant past. Host Angela Mariani explores the world of historical performance, presenting music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and beyond. Thursdays at 8 PM on WFIU and Sundays at noon on WFIU2. Harmonia is a co-production of WFIU and Early Music America.
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While incarcerated at Fleet Prison, English composer William Cornysh wrote a long poem, "A Treatise between Information and Truth," which drew upon many musical metaphors to explain how and why he was falsely imprisoned. This week on Harmonia, we’ll explore the life and music of William Cornysh II, 500 years after his death. -
Sometimes we need a good cry. Music can provide a space for mourning and lament for both personal sadness and religious observation. This week on Harmonia, we’ll be exploring musical settings of the Book of Lamentations. We’ll hear uses of this text in traditions from Tisha b’Av to Tenebrae.
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This hour, we’re continuing our exploration of ways that landscape has been reflected in the music of earlier centuries, from topography and weather conditions to wildlife and human interventions. We’ll float down rivers, stroll through peaceful forests, and admire hgfdqpowerful storms in music by Clément Janequin, Claudio Monteverdi, Matthew Locke, and more. -
We’re exploring music in and about the Americas during the first centuries of European colonization. We begin our journey in New France with the musical legacies of Jesuit missions, fur trading outposts, and occupied indigenous nations. -
Join us on a bohemian escapade of sorts, as we explore baroque music composed by violinist Philipp Jakob Rittler and trumpet virtuoso Pavel Josef Vejvanovský. Plus, festive Baroque music for trumpets and strings on our featured recording by Ars Antiqua Austria. -
We’re exploring ways that landscape has been reflected in the music of earlier centuries, from topography and weather conditions to wildlife and human interventions. We’ll gaze at distant mountains, wander through meadows, hop fences, and rest in shady glens in music by Cipriano de Rore, Thomas Weelkes, Robert Johnson, and more. -
When Christian IV of Denmark visited his brother-in-law James Stuart in England, they threw some raucous, wild parties . . . so, it’s no surprise that King Christian’s fondness for the British Isles informed his musical patronage. This week on Harmonia: renaissance music from the court at Copenhagen. -
Double reed instruments — both sweet and spectacular — have been a part of music across classes and genres for centuries. This week, from shawms to bombards to the Baroque hautboy, we’re exploring music for early oboes. Our featured release is Denis Delair: The Violin Sonatas, by The Levée. -
Lots of music has come down through the centuries with no listed author, requiring varying levels of historical forensics by scholars and performers wishing to sleuth out its origin. This hour on Harmonia, we’re exploring music with notorious and notoriously incorrect composer attributions. -
This week on Harmonia: music associated with coffee and coffeehouses. Grab a cup of your favorite brew as we travel from Constantinople to Leipzig, London, Paris, and back again, hearing sounds of different coffeehouses from the 16th to the 18th centuries. -
From nerdy puns to cheeky double entendres, musicians have long used their medium to make light of themselves and the world around them. Join us this hour on Harmonia for a celebration of wordplay in music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries! -
This hour on Harmonia, we’re continuing our series on music in and about the Americas during the first centuries of European colonization. Join us as we explore the myriad musical traditions of New England and the mid Atlantic between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
