Early Music Now’s ‘Beowulf’ Concert

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Photo: Early Music Now

Benjamin Bagby 'Beowulf'

Benjamin Bagby performing ‘Beowulf’

Beowulf might have been briefly mentioned in my college and graduate school music education, but I really knew nothing about it. The Old English piece, with a story set in 6th century Scandinavia, was written by an anonymous author/composer between 975 and 1025, likely passed down orally. I won’t attempt to try to relay this complex, intricate military story. Suffice it to say it is about the good and evil sides of war. Beowulf, king of the Danes, is repeatedly attacked by the evil monster Grendel and his followers. To say this is a bloody tale is to put it mildly.

Beowulf was the entire Early Music Now concert of Saturday evening. Any performance of medieval music is, by necessity, some kind of arrangement/interpretation. It is not notated with full instrumentation in the way that music became later by the time of the Renaissance.

Benjamin Bagby is a terrific, expert singer, straddling the baritone and lower tenor ranges in a rather large voice. He has made a specialty of the piece. Bagby performed with gusto and colorful, dramatic full expression, freely acting/singing this epic poem. He played simple accompaniments on a 6-string German harp.

The Old English is unintelligible to modern ears. It was demanding for the audience to constantly read the dense projected translations. Imagine watching a foreign film with the most translated text you have ever read, constant and rather abstract. That will give an idea of what the audience experienced, at least in my opinion. 

This was the most accomplished presentation imaginable. Because of the piece itself, I admit I honestly found it to be among the most difficult performances to digest and follow that I’ve ever experienced of music in any style. I couldn’t have been the only one in the audience to have had that impression. However, at least I now know what Beowulf, one of the most important medieval pieces, actually is. And obviously, it was a gateway to what people heard more than 1000 years ago. I admire that Early Music Now bravely programmed it. 

The concert took place at the Irish Cultural & Heritage Center on Wisconsin Avenue, a friendly hall to acoustic performances. If I’ve ever been there before, it has been decades. It made me wonder why this hall isn’t used more frequently.