Mundus et Musica - Instrumental Music in Spain and
Flanders c.1500
see end of review for track listing
Anna Danilevskaia (fiddle); Christophe Deslignes (organetto)
Qualia/Lambert Colson (recorders and cornetti)
rec. 26-29 June 2012, Chapelle del la Vierge, Château de Magnitot,
Saint-Gervais,
France
CARPE DIEM CD 16294 [53.17]
Here we have twenty pieces, several of which, the ones in two parts in
fact,
come from a single manuscript ‘The Segovia (Cathedral) Codex’.
The
interesting and detailed booklet notes by Fabrice Fitch describe it as
“
one of the most idiosyncratic and fascinating witnesses to the music of
the
late fifteenth century”. Its contents feature the master composers
from
Flanders. Many of these composers had Spanish connections through the
mingling
of marriages in the 1490s of the house of Aragon with the children of
Maximilian
I and Mary of Burgundy. All of them were of the very musical nobility and
the
music reflects this cultural interchange.
The CD offers only instrumental performances as composers
“frequently
took a voice from an existing polyphonic chanson as the basis of a new
work”.
The Segovia manuscript has several works which consist of a single line,
or
two lines as in the pieces drawn from other sources. These have been added
to
an already existing voice. The other sources, listed in the booklet,
include
two from the Florence Bibliotheca from which comes the Tinctoris
arrangement
of Ockeghem’s popular D’ung aultre amer.
The group Qualia is made up of only three performers. They play fiddle,
organetto,
recorders and cornetto (all modern copies). In other words we hear some of
the
most expressive instruments of the middle ages. These three musicians are
really
sensitive players responsive to the general style of the mid-renaissance
and
to each other. The cornetto was thought to be the nearest thing to the
human
voice. When played so beautifully as this by Lambert Colson - note
especially
Compère’s Le Grant desir, - one can see why. The
instrumentation
varies from track to track.
The composers represented include the extraordinary Alexander Agricola with
five compositions. He always seems to stand out in such a context. His sense
of fantasy and his contrapuntal skill sometimes leave me almost breathless
as in Cecus non judicat de coloribus. Other pieces sound somewhat old-fashioned.
Curiously this applies to Tout a par moy by that arch-theorist Johannes
Tinctoris. It’s good to have so many pieces by him available here.
You will have noticed from the titles that we are mixing sacred and
secular
repertoire. Fray Benito’s Kyrie and Gloria rubs shoulders
with
Tinctoris’s take on Robert Morton’s famous song Le
souvenir
and the neo-erotic song De tous bien playne originally by Hayne van
Ghizegen.
There is even an example of a basse-danse using the La Spagna tenor
by
one Magister Guliemus. In all of these either the plainchant, or the
original
tune are embedded in the texture either as a cantus firmus or as
the
basis of an improvisation, captured in the manuscript. In Brumel’s
Tandernac
the fiddle opens up alone with the sustained line around which the piece
is
based. Then the organetto and treble recorder dance ecstatically around it
with
their happy counterpoint. Of the twelve two-part pieces from Segovia
mention
should be made of the secular song Comme femme and the Latin-texted
Gaudeamus
omnes. Both are by Agricola and, invariably, the tenor notes are given
to
the fiddle, which after all is best at sustaining long pitches.
Most of the composers are well known but Bartolemeus Ramis de Pareia is a
new name I think. He was a Spanish mathematician as well as a music theorist.
Fray Benito, also a Spaniard, is a composer of whom I can tell you nothing.
It must be agreed that this is a somewhat specialist CD. It’s
possible
that, at fifty-three minutes, you might feel somewhat short-changed by
this
disc but the playing is so fine and the repertoire so rare and pleasing
that
you could almost play the disc right through again without feeling all
that
bleary-eyed.
Gary Higginson
Track listing
Antoine BRUMEL (1460-1512)
Tandernac [2.58]
Alexander AGRICOLA (1445-1506)
Gaudeamus omnes in Domineo [2.57]
Alez Regretz (after Hayne von Ghizegen) [5.52]
Comme femme [2.05];
Cecus non judicat de coloribus [5.02]
Princesse de toute beaulte [1.58]
Bartolomeus RAMIS DE PAREIA (1440-1522)
Mundus et musica et tortus concentus [2.02]
Johannes TINCTORIS (1435-1511)
Le Souvenir [1.48]
D‘ung aultre amer (after Ockeghem) [2.14]
De tous bien playne [1.46]
Elaes Abrayam [2.16]
Aleluya [1.33]
Fray BENITO (c.1500)
Kyrie [3.15]
Gloria [3.42]
Tout a par moy [2.54]
Loyset COMPÈRE (1445-1518)
Beaulte damours [2.05]
Le grant desir d’aymer m’y tient [1.33]
Anon
Canon Undecim apstoli secure sunt Petrum [1.30]
Ave Sanctissima [2.33]
Magister GULIEMUS (Gugliemo Ebreo de Pesaro)
La Spagna/Falle con misuras [3.03]
The playing is so fine and the repertoire so rare and pleasing that you could almost play the disc right through again without feeling all that bleary-eyed.
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