There were times listening to this deeply impressive
recording when I wondered whether the Orlando Consort were not,
after all, the greatest ensemble of its kind anywhere. Its that
kind of disc. Allied to a thorough and intellectual grounding
comes a persuasive and sustained beauty of tone that coalesces
to form a unity of idea and execution. That said this is not
easy repertoire because Ars Subtilior is of heightened
intellectual complexity, both literary and musical. The music
on this disc which comes from two 1994 BBC broadcasts and is
released by arrangement reflects the Papal schisms and the Dual
Papacies of Rome and Avignon between 1317 and 1447. It was the
era of Petrarch and Jan Hus, religious ferment and intellectual
fireworks. The sacred music recorded here is generally austere
and complex though lightened by knowing internalised puns (in
the case of an anonymous setting of Gloria, Clemens written
for Clement I where the pun is on his name and clemency).
In addition very little multi-movement music has survived so
the programming is necessarily disparate with composers ranging
from Dufay to several anonymous settings the former being among
the greatest moments on the disc. Both Balsamus et munda
cera and Supremum est are extraordinarily sophisticated
settings with the latter dazzling both in imaginative conception
and its execution by the Consort. The songs have an elegant
and quick sensuality that is immediately attractive; Zacharies
Gia per gran nobelta is especially invigorating. This
interpolation of the two genres, the sacred and the profane,
adds immeasurably to the texture of the disc, properly reflective
of the musical impulses of the time. There is an excellent note
from the scholar Margaret Bent that clarifies and illuminates
the musico-political history of the period. And as I said before
the Orlando Consorts singing is really beyond praise as is the
whole production.
Jonathan Woolf
Orlando Consort
