The Wilde Roses are led by singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and passionate researcher Anna Tam and featuring singer and medieval wind performer Emily Baines, and medieval plucked string and percussion performer Arngeir Hauksson – are musically and visually inspired by the medieval and renaissance world. Their repertoire is drawn from illuminated manuscripts, courtly song books, Elizabethan broadside ballads and the folk tradition.
Fascinated by the stories in these songs – medieval religious imagery so beautifully infused with nature; renaissance tales of piracy, jilted lovers and general folly alongside some of the most sincere and tender love songs that reach to the heart of life and human relationships – we are moved by a desire to explore and recreate the sound world of this historical repertoire and to share these exquisite songs with present day audiences.
This piece ‘Man Mai Longe Lives Weene’ seemed suitable for a soggy Tuesday because the lyrics go after this fashion: Man may think that he lives long, But oft him belies the wrench. Fair weather turneth oft into rain… Thsi is followed by Anna Tam & Emily Alice Ovenden performing an extract from Edi Beo Thu Heven Queene, a 13th Century English gymel (a form of early English polyphony) in praise of the Virgin Mary, sung in Middle English. In this period the Virgin Mary was often the subject of song.
However they can also turn their talents to more contemporary songs as here with a awesome version of a June Tabor original ‘Cold & Raw’, performed at the Institute of Musical Traditions, St. Mark Church, Rockville, MD, USA in 2017. Who would have thought that the Americans would enjoy such music.
