A musical history lesson

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 22

A musical history lesson

By KAY FORRESTER Michael Bagenal is a history teacher who believes in active history.

And that means dressing up in period costume, recreating the atmosphere of an English castle in the Middle Ages and making authentic medieval instruments to teach children about medieval music.

Travelling around the schools of Britain has become a full-time job for Mr Bagenal and his wife Alison.

Their aim is to pass on to today’s children some of the flavour and fun of history and its music. The idea was Mr Bagenal’s. As the advisor on humanities for the Cambridgeshire education system - “a grand title. It meant I advised on a whole lot of subjects” - he came up with the idea for a series of projects involving music from different periods.

The music was familar to Mrs Bagenal, who was a violin teacher.

Together they devised a

project, which revolved around the music, instruments and life of the Middle Ages.

Now they have five period projects, two from the Middle Ages. They are a castles project and a markets and merchants project which centres on the English wool trade. The other projects are about Queen Elizabeth 1 and the Tudor period, the Civil War and the Samuel Pepys and the Fire of London.

At present the English couple are working on another on Victorian times.

They have not been able to bring many of their instruments with them to New Zealand.

“We decided to bring the children’s instruments because we would spend a day in a Christchurch school (the Rudolf Steiner School), ” Mr Bagenal said. Those instruments - rebec, dulcimer, harp, psaltery - have been made by Mr BagenaL

“I have simplified the construction,” he said running a hand over the curving frame of the harp. “They are simple enough for a teacher to make or for secondary students.”

At a course the/couple took at the Auckland Teachers’ College before coming to Christchurch last week for the school day and a concert hosted by the Christchurch Early Music Society they taught teachers about using music to portray the Middle Ages to their students.

“Every teacher made an instrument,” said Michael Bagenal. This week the Bagenals are back in Auckland, to spend three weeks at the Auckland Museum. They will show 2500 school children who will visit the museum their instruments and explain how they are made and how to play them.

The demonstration coincides with an exhibition at the museum of

instruments, including Maori instruments and early music instruments made by New Zealanders. What attracted the Bagenals to early music? “We knew the music because I played it,” Mrs Bagenal said. “It is not difficult so children can learn to play it”

Much of the music the Bagenals use is already in print. It has been adapted by Alison Bagenal for children. “Some of our friends have translated from manuscripts and they let us use their translations but I haven’t translated any music,” Mrs Bagenal said.

The music is contained in a series of text books the couple has written for use by teachers. Another five books are due for publication next year. Michael Bagenal says he likes taking the early music instruments into the schools because they bring fresh sounds to children other than the recorder.

“Everyone knows the recorder, but the psaltery, the dulcimer ... they are different sounds.” The Victorian period project they are working on now will prove interesting in terms of instruments, Mrs Bagenal said. "We have a very nice harmonium at home which we’ll use. In fact we saw one just like it in the Alexandra Museum.” The harmonium and an assortment of dulcimers, psalteries and harps, most made by Mr Bagenal, are in the Bagenals’ own collection.

“And I’ve got bagpipes and all sorts of other instruments and Alison has a beautiful bass viol she plays.” Travelling with a collection of unusual instruments can have its funny side. The six turkey quill feathers the Bagenals use to play the psalteries were solemnly taken away and fumigated by New Zealand’s Custom officers at Auckland.