I have already reviewed
and recommended two Nimbus recordings
of the Martin Best Ensemble, now once
again available thanks to the resurgence
of that label, but, sadly, ignored
by the current editions of the Penguin
Guide and Gramophone Guide.
Follow the links for reviews of Forgotten
Provence (NI5445)
and the Cantigas of Alfonso
X (NI5081).
The present recording
develops the two themes addressed
by Guiraut de Bornelh in Reis glorios
on the Forgotten Provence album,
fin amors or courtly love and
the love of Christ and His virgin
Mother. Though medieval poetry frequently
treats Mary as more approachable than
Jesus, her position as Queen of Heaven
nevertheless makes human love for
her seem as distant a longing as the
amors de terra lontanha, love
from a far-off land (tr.9) of the
lover for his earthly beloved. In
the 14th-century English
poem Pearl, even the poet’s
own daughter who died in infancy,
now one of the heavenly consort, remains
aloof and unapproachable, as if the
narrow stream across which he sees
her in a vision acted as a force-field.
To her father’s request to cross to
her, the daughter replies sharply:
Me þynk þe burde fyrst
aske leue,
And et of graunt þou my te
fayle.
Þou wylne ouer þys water
to weue;
Er moste þou ceuer to oþer
counsayle:
Þy corse in clot mot calder
keue.
For hit wat forgarte at Paradys
greue;
Oure orefader hit con mysseeme.
Þur drwry deth bo vch man
dreue,
Er ouer þys dam hym Drytyn
deme.
[You had better ask permission first
– and yet I think you would not
get it. You want to cross over this
water; first you must alter your
thinking – your corpse must lie
coldly in the earth, for it was
forfeited in the grove of Paradise;
our forefather [Adam] misjudged
matters. Every man must pass through
dreadful death before the Lord may
judge him worthy to pass over this
water.]
How much more distant,
then, the Queen of Heaven.
Martin Best explains
in the accompanying booklet the manner
in which he has merged these themes,
each of the first five sections commencing
with one or more instrumental items,
mostly in dance form, followed by
one or more antiphons in praise of
the Virgin Mary and concluding with
a canso or courtly love song,
by two of the best-known troubadours,
Jaufre Rudel and Bernart de Ventadorn.
The opening instrumental piece is
by the third of these well-known troubadours,
Guiraut de Bornelh, with a final sixth
section consisting solely of another
instrumental piece by Guiraut, whose
music thus frames the whole programme.
Whatever one may
think of the explanation which Best
offers, based on the philosopher Boethius,
a pre-eminent figure in medieval thought,
the programme certainly works well
as a whole. I am inclined to recommend
it almost as much as the Forgotten
Provence CD, though that spreads
its net more widely and offers a rather
better introduction to the music of
the period. Both are as enjoyable
as they are unlikely, in terms of
authenticity, fully to satisfy scholars.
The latter are likely to prefer the
several Gothic Voices reissues on
the Hyperion Helios label which I
have recently reviewed.
On the other hand,
those who expect to find medieval
jolly japes here will be largely disappointed.
Apart from some of the livelier dances,
such as the Rotta (tr.16) –
and Martin Best can, perhaps, be accused
of spicing these up a little and over-emphasising
the contrast between the solemn and
the lively – the mood of the music
on this recording is quiet and reflective.
The works on offer
range from the eleventh to the early
fourteenth centuries, albeit centred
on the twelfth-century troubadour
pieces, which will be the main point
of interest for potential purchasers.
Though Occitan, the Provençal
language of these cansos is
very different from that of Northern
France, Jaufre at least seems to have
anticipated a widespread appreciation
of his music:
... quar gens Peitivina
De Berry e de Guizana,
S’esgau per lieys, e Bretanha.
[... for the Poitevin people, those
of Berry and Guienne, are pleased
by it, and those of Brittany.]
The opening canso
melody, played on a Moorish guitar
reconstructed from a manuscript illustration,
commences the programme quietly. Some
of the other sections begin with two
contrasting dances, their varying
styles well captured in the performances
on the psaltery and guitarra moresca
(Martin Best) and harp (Frances Kelly).
The Lamento di Tristan (tr.15)
and the Rotta (tr.16) make
a particularly good contrast.
Pérotin’s
Beata visecera (tr.2) is not
one of the Notre Dame master’s most
striking pieces; indeed, none of the
Marian antiphons on the CD, all dating
from before or around 1100, and some
of them of short duration, is likely
to be as attractive to the modern
listener as later polyphonic settings.
They are hardly likely to sell the
recording in their own right but all
are sung with great delicacy.
Alma redemptoris
mater was the favourite song of
the little clergeoun or choirboy
martyred in Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale.
The Prioress tells us that he now
sings "O Alma loude and
cleere" in Heaven. The Martin
Best Consort are hardly likely to
rival such heavenly perfection, but
they come pretty close, particularly
here but also in the other antiphons.
Anima mea liqufacta
est blends earthly and spiritual
love, the text taken from the Song
of Songs, which the medieval church
applied to the Virgin Mary, though
the secular love theme is clearly
discernible. The piece is sung here
with as much feeling as is possible
for such a simple setting.
Nightingales inevitably
feature largely in medieval love poetry.
In Can lo ruis de la fontana
(tr.9) they join those other symbols
of love, the clear water of the fountain
and the eglantine or sweet-briar.
In Can lo rosinhol (tr.3),
a nightingale appears in the very
first line, stirring the heart of
the courtly lover. The theme of this
canso is not rejection by his
beloved or her ignorance of his existence
– that theme was to be more fully
developed later by Dante and Petrarch
– but the tension of having to leave
her, usually to go on crusade. The
theme of the canso turns from
the secular love of its beginning
to the desire to love and serve God.
Martin Best’s singing might have benefited
from greater contrast between the
opening and the ending but his rendition
is otherwise very enjoyable.
Indeed, I enjoyed
his performances of all the cansos,
especially Ab joi (tr.6), which
receives a beautifully affective performance.
Martin Best’s note in the booklet
is very helpful in describing the
appeal of this piece, but he leaves
the reference to Peleus’ lance unexplained,
other than to say that it evokes "a
swift image of Celtic battle".
In Homer’s Iliad the lance
which Peleus gave to his son Achilles
had the power to heal any wound which
it had itself created – Bernart’s
comparison of it with the power of
love here is particularly apt; if
anything, more apt than Dante’s use
of a similar image in Inferno
XXXI.
I know that some
feel that Martin Best’s singing sometimes
emphasises beauty of tone at the expense
of the meaning of the words – one
critic has levelled this criticism
at his performance of Tant ai mo
cor (tr.14) – but it is not a
criticism that I endorse. Tant
ai is a remarkable evocation of
the madness of the lover – not the
raging madness of Ariosto’s Orlando
but the sheer illogicality of one
who sees flowers in winter and feels
so confident in the power of love
that he could stand naked in the cold
north wind, car fin amors m’asegura,
for courtly love makes me safe. Best’s
performance seems to me from the start
fully cognisant of this illogicality.
All the cansos
on this CD stress the power of love
rather than rejection by the beloved.
Love drives the singer to madness
in Tant ai mo cor but it is
absence rather than rejection that
is the theme even in this piece: he
is lonh de leis, en Fransa,
far away from her, in France. The
title of the CD, Amor de lonh,
is actually taken from a canso
by Jaufre Rudel, Lancan li jorn,
not included on this disc but featured
on the Forgotten Provence disc:
Lanquan li jorn son lonc e may
M’es belhs dous chans d’auzelhs
de lonh,
E quan mi suy partitz de lay,
Remembra.m d’un’ amor de lonh.
[In May, when days are long, the
sweet songs of the birds from afar
are dear to me, and, when I have
gone far away, I remember love from
afar.]
I cannot imagine
the sweet melancholy of this theme
being better expounded than by Best.
The final sung canso,
Can par la flors (tr.18) is
perhaps the most striking. Its final
motto, Mo Bel vezer gart Deus d’ir’e
de mal,/S’eu sui de lonh, e de pres
atretal (My beautiful vision,
may God guard you from harm and pain,/If
I be far away or near you, it’s the
same) sums up the mood of all the
cansos here ; its words
and music are haunting, especially
in Martin Best’s performance.
And when all the
tributes to the heavenly and the earthly
ladies have been sung, the unnamed
melody by Guiraut de Bornelh (tr.19)
brings us full circle, to the calm
of the opening track.
The recording is
good, though it is best played at
a rather higher volume than usual.
Though rather less close than the
Forgotten Provence CD, to its
benefit, Martin Best’s solo voice
is clearly focused, with the instrumental
accompaniment shimmering in the background.
The Marian antiphons are recorded
with the voices, as it were, in the
middle distance.
Texts and translations
are provided, though typos such as
quit e for qui te (track
5) are annoying – and, surely, the
past tense of ‘beseech’ is ‘besought’,
not ‘beseeched’ (tr.14). And shouldn’t
Salterello be Saltarello,
though I have retained Nimbus’s spelling
in the headnote of this review?
If you feel that
you want to know more about the troubadour
tradition before you buy any of these
CDs, the article in the Concise Grove
is a good starting point – follow
the link.
Brian Wilson
Martin Best Consort 
