Behind bars: Music from medieval and Renaissance prisons

If you imagine music in medieval and early modern society, where do you see it being performed? In castles? In churches? On the street? All of these places were common venues for music making, but a lesser-known venue for music in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was the prison. Lonely, unsanitary and demoralising, prisons were sometimes host to composers of music who had allied themselves with the wrong political cause or who had broken the law.

For these men, music was a way to communicate with the outside world, to cope with the emotional strain of imprisonment and to come to terms with the decisions they had made. Furthermore, composers who were not themselves imprisoned often set to music texts that were written in prison, as their extreme emotions were perfect inspiration for musical composition.

This concert by Ensemble L’Isola and the Cambridge Early Music Consort presents works of choral music composed in medieval and early modern prisons or inspired by the experience of incarcerated men. Works by composers such as Richard the Lionheart, William Byrd and Carlo Gesualdo are accompanied by short talks by Dr Joseph W Mason (Faculty of Music) about the music and the realities of medieval and early modern prison life.