The Frolicking Weasels were a student recorder group at Bennington College in 1989-1991. The name comes from the fact that we played several settings of an old tune called "Een Vrolijk Wezen", which is Dutch for "a merry being", and liked it. But we didn't know Dutch so we figured it looked more like "a frolicking weasel". Why not!
The Weasels were: Satie Airamé, lower right; Laurel Maury, right (with scarf); Ann Memhard, center (with sari); Maxine Neuman ("mama weasel"), second from top (with bass w/bocal); John Wilson, top (in dire need of haircut).
We played often at the weekly music workshops run by the music department at Bennington College, in Greenwall auditorium, but I haven't tried to dig up the tapes of any of those. We also played in my senior recital in 1991, I do have the tape for that but it's too horrifying to post here. Besides the fact that that concert was generally a disaster (not the Weasels' part, but everything else), when I went back to the music library ten years later to get a copy of the tape, it turned out that it was messed up (possibly recorded at the wrong level to begin with) and sounds terrible.
Anyway we had a lot of fun, especially because what we were doing was so out of whack with the generally jazz-oriented music program at Bennington.
The pinnacle of Weasel achievement was the concert we played in Greenwall auditorium on Nov. 20, 1989. This was unfortunately before Laurel joined us. Luckily this concert was recorded, as was our dress rehearsal and Maxine did a really nice job of editing in pieces of the rehearsal to fix the major screw-ups in the real performance, to produce our one and only album. It starts out a little choppy and tentative, but settles in a bit as we get over our jitters and relax. Satie's mom drew us some nice sketches of weasels frolicking for the poster (later re-edited for our "Weasels à la carte" dining hall mini-concert which was not recorded), and made into a cassette cover by Maxine. My copy of the cassette sat under the seat in my minivan for several years before I got around to digitizing it, and even when it was brand new it captured almost as much of Greenwall's wonderful ventilation system as it did actual music, but anyway it's better than nothing.
We brought in ringers, so there's more here than just us. I forget who played what, except that I'm pretty sure I'm bass on track 10 and I'm definitely harpsichord on track 14, and the duet on track 7 has got to be Satie and Maxine. Robin was the singer, Paul played guitar, Rebeka played recorder on the improv piece, and I think Xtopher played recorder too. The rest of it is just weasels playing various recorders, and whenever there's a viola da gamba or cello, that's Maxine. The very first piece was a gimmick, we played it while walking down to the stage from the back of the auditorium, coming around either side of the bleachers where the audience was, to shut them up. So that's why it sounds so far away at first, and you can hear a lot of noise.
OK so here's what's in the MP3s (click on a piece title to play it):
The Frolicking Weasels:
Satie Airamé
Ann Memhard
Maxine Neuman
John Wilson
and:
Robin Lehleitner Mackin
Paul Opel
Rebeka Rodriguez
Xtopher Faris
| track | time | title | composer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:44 | Alle, psallite - Alleluya | Anon. (England, 13th cent.) |
| 2 | 1:23 | Ein Frolich Wesenn | Jacob Obrecht (Netherlands, c.1450-1505) |
| 3 | 1:21 | Ein frölich wesen | Anon. (Flanders, 15th cen.) |
| 4 | 3:02 | Lachrime antiquae (1605) | John Dowland (England, 1563-1626) |
| 5 | 3:33 | Flow my teares (1600) | |
| 6 | 3:58 | Semper Dowland, semper dolens (1605) | |
| 7 | 1:38 | Duet for 2 alto recorders (1989) | Satie Airamé |
| 8 | 6:40 | Sonata à 2 | G. P. Telemann (Germany, 1681-1767) |
| 9 | 3:18 | Improvisation | |
| 10 | 7:21 | Sonata à Quatre Parties (1731) Andante - Presto - Adagio - Allegro |
J. Bodin de Boismortier (France, 1689-1755) |
| 11 | 6:27 | Pöytä Musiika Herttua Juhanalle Air allegretto - Gigue en rondeau - Air lent - Caccia - Galliarde |
Einojuhani Rautavaara (Finland, 1928-) |
| 12 | 1:14 | Ain frölich wesen | Matthaeus Pipelare (Flanders, c.1450-c.1515) |
| 13 | 1:18 | Een vroelic wessenn | Alexander Agricola (France, 1446-1506) |
| 14 | 10:23 | Triosonata in G minor | Antonio Vivaldi (Italy, 1678-1741) |