Adam de la Halle will
be best known to many for his Jeu
de Robin et de Marion, the most
recent recording of which (there are
now four) is by Tonus Peregrinus and
was released on Naxos in 2006. Born
in Artois (near Arras) some time in
the 1240s – possibly around 1237 – Adam
was well known for his scholarly approach
to poetry and chansons. Straddling the
worlds and traditions of the court,
the clergy and lay responsibilities,
he came to epitomise the intellectual
challenge to court culture whilst thriving
on one of its most prominent topoi,
courtly love.
Working in the trouvère
tradition of northern France, the counterpart
of the Occitan (southern) troubadours,
Adam eventually followed Robert II,
Count of Artois, to the court of Naples.
His contribution to French vernacular
theatre was as significant as was that
of the troubadours and later the trouvères
to broader European lyric vernacular
poetry. For these reasons it’s good
that his music - which really means
his poetry and music - is receiving
the greater attention it now is. It’s
music which is driven, unsentimental,
focused and extremely beautiful.
Just three dozen monophonic
chansons of Adam’s survive. Common to
almost all of them is the theme of douce
douleur, mal joli – or ‘sweet
pain’. There are almost half of these
on this delightful CD, which range in
length from eighteen seconds to nine
and a half minutes. They are of amazing
and consistent inventiveness: there
is far more to such chansons than stock
phrases of complaint and longing. It’s
necessary for the lover knight to elevate
and imbue his love with such otherwise
laudable traits as moderation, gentility
and altruism – in the hopes of impressing
his worthiness on ‘his’ lady.
This parallelism has
the effect of requiring ‘profane’ (as
opposed to amorous) imagery, for example,
in his addresses to her and in his self-reflection.
Love is seen in the light of a purity,
which manages – for all its intensity
– to put desire second. The music and
the relationship of words to music must
endorse and reflect this. They must
also reflect a distance, a paradoxical
taking of the musician/poet and his
lover persona somewhat out of the picture
whilst retaining the intensity. This
Adam achieves with variety and conviction.
This distance is also
one of the successes of Les
Jardins de Courtoisie with soprano/director
Anne Delafosse-Quentin.
They are in tune with the idioms and
registers of this music and obviously
relish performing it, without at the
same time degrading its profundity,
however perhaps alien to us the genre
may seem seven centuries later.
The presentation of
the CD may be a little too ‘flashy’
for some… the instrumentation, the choice
of instruments is spectacular, very
varied and perhaps a little too bright
(in Merchi, Amours, for example)
for the restraint of the simple plaintive
lines of the voice.
That vocal line is
perhaps most effective when unaccompanied
or plainly underlined by melodic accompaniment
alone. The final track (Qui a puchele
ou dame amee) fades out and contains
perhaps unexpected ‘effects’ - there
are some long gaps between tracks anyway.
So the CD, which was not recorded as
a concert, has the feel in places of
musicians trying a little too hard to
commend the music to listeners unfamiliar
with its treasures by pushing sounds
in their direction with a banquet of
‘bells and whistles’ (literally) instead
of unadorned, sparse fare.
For example Puis
que je sui l'amourouse loi is one
of several tracks where the wind players
and On demande mout souvent qu' est
Amours the strings seem to be aiming
for an effect more redolent of the Indian
subcontinent than northern France. Not
always convincing in that the remoteness
of the thirteenth century French sound
is its appeal; it’s not necessary to
soften that by adding a ‘supporting
cast’. D’amourous cuer voel chanter
is much more effective – it has Delafosse-Quentin’s
voice alone. But these techniques
will not be intrusive for every listener.
If this is an attempt
at over-interpretation, the music-making
is nevertheless colourful and surely
represents one legitimate approach to
making the most of the material. Les
Jardins de Courtoisie clearly know what
they are doing. Their website
lists seven CDs current, all of them
exploring the chanson from the trouvères
to the Baroque air de cour. Theirs
is an expertise well worth getting to
know. It’s unlikely that this will be
the definitive collection of these chansons.
But it makes a welcome addition to any
collector’s library of French mediaeval
song.
Mark Sealey
for details
Les Jardins de Courtoisie; Anne Delafosse-Quentin
(soprano) 
