The Alehouse Sessions

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The Alehouse Sessions – curated and devised by Bjarte Eike – is an ever changing and evolving insight into the music of the English 17th Century tavern. It gives audiences a window into this tumultuous period through Purcell overtures, English sea shanties, and raucous Scandinavian and Canadian folk songs thrown in for good measure. In 17th century England, Oliver Cromwell moved to close all the theatres and concert venues- forcing the musicians, actors, and dancers off the stages and into any number of “alternative” venues. In 1630, there were registered more than 30,000 alehouses, 2,000 inns and 400 taverns in England and Wales. These were the new homes for the artists of the day. The pub has since the earliest of times been the English people’s second home. The establishments can be divided into three categories: the inns, taverns and alehouses (later known as public houses). In these establishments one would meet to eat, drink, and sleep, but, especially after 1660, one would also hold political meetings, feasts, balls, concerts, gambling events, flower shows etc .. and of course, these houses were the main venues for the extreme consumption of alcohol in the 17th century¹. Samuel Pepys is also notoriously known for his fondness of alcohol. In his diaries, he’s listing all kinds of favourite drinks like ale, cider, beer, brandy, all sorts of wines and mixed drinks like posset, butter beer, hippocras etc². This made it more difficult for musicians to bring their instruments 4, but the demand for entertainment at the drinking houses was high, so instead people started performing vocal music like part-songs, catches and canons. Post-restoration

With the outbreak of the English Civil Wars in 1642, the Puritans had the Commonwealth parliament closing all theatres. The music masters of London’s churches and courts were scattered and left to fend for themselves. The alehouse sessions is flexible and can be presented in many different forms and settings. It can be an enlightenment project, a music-theatre, an improvised happening, a show or an educational event – I see it is an organic, living organism that never stands still. Using their own arrangement of the tunes, these ‘Alehouse Boys’ combine this unique format with humor, an unrivalled virtuosity and flare for improvisation. In this exclusive video clip to The Strad,Norwegian violinist and the Barokksolistene perform Wallom Green from The Alehouse Sessions. First an album from 2017 as well as a series of performances, The Alehouse Sessionshas now been turned into a film for television, to be broadcast on BBC Four on 23 April. So how did it all start? The initial impetus came from creating a series of informal concerts for a festival in Norway. Prior to that, I had already dabbled in folk and pop bands as a teenager and student. When I studied in Bergen, my band and I also briefly worked for Guinness when they ceremoniously opened new taps in Norwegian pubs in the early 90s.This diversion from the traditional concert model is what is at the heart of the Sessions. Through the medium of these well-loved tunes, a story of the period is interwoven into the music making; creating a unique environment between audience and performer. Bjarte Eike goes into detail about what makes this special: For step-free access from the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating (excluding rows A to C) and wheelchair spaces in the Rear Stalls, plus Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer and the Purcell Room, please use the Queen Elizabeth Hall main entrance. Even if the music, the stories and the dances get their inspiration from historical events, the project has now developed into being the essence of what the Barokksolistene’s operation aims to be – a creative energy center, where powerful, virtuosic individuals meet to create something unique, time-less, actual and genre-breaking – something that resonates with a modern and diverse audience. Norwegian violinist Bjarte Eike and his Barokksolistene have restored the spirit and substance of those long-forgotten performances with their Alehouse Sessions, hailed by The Times as ‘irresistible’ and ‘fabulously unrestrained’ by The Guardian. Five years ago the Norwegian violinist and his band scored a best-selling album with The Alehouse Sessions on Rubicon Classics. They return to the label with another compelling collection of music and words of the kind on offer more than three centuries ago at Henry Purcell’s favourite Westminster watering holes. The Playhouse Sessions, set for release on Rubicon Classics on 23 September 2022, reflects the uplifting energy and engaging emotional contrasts of Barokksolistene’s Alehouse performances. This was a different kind of baroque music – the popular ballads, not ceremonial masses, coronations and weddings. It made me explore further books on English drinking establishments and what happened when Cromwell introduced prohibition. I realised that we couldn’t just play English music and not consider where it was performed. The public house is such an integral part of the English culture – it’s neutral ground, regardless of age or sex – it’s a place to escape reality where chatting and gossiping thrive. And so in 2008, when I was engaged as the artist in residence at the Bergen international Festival, one of the programmes I presented was the Alehouse Sessions.

Eike and Barokksolistene bring the camaraderie of the period, the artistry and the connection between musicians and the audience to life in this production, filmed on location at Battersea Arts Centre and The George Inn, Southwark. My masters, are you mad?… Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an ale-house of my lady’s house, that ye squeak your cozier’s catches without any mitigation or remorse of voice?” Civil war/CommonwealthIt was this idea which acted as the catalyst for creating the Alehouse Sessions, which has now caught the keen eye of filmmaker Dominic Best, who will be bringing us to your screens on BBC4 on Sunday 23 April. I launched the project in 2007, as a concert-form where the music found in the English public-houses during and after the Commonwealth was explored. It was an immediate success and has gained popularity with audiences and promoters within a wide field of music. Ever since 2007, the project has been in constant development.