This disc provides a survey of the gradual development of polyphonic
music from Gregorian chant in England and France during the
period from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. Two of the
four singers here – Maria Andrea Parias and Sarah Richards –
were responsible for the selection of the pieces, derived from
manuscripts from as far afield as Worcester, Cambridge, Oxford,
London, Montpellier, Bamberg and Wolfenbüttel, and for the extremely
informative and extensive booklet notes: six pages analysing
the music in its historical context.
The booklet notes quotes an account of the tenth century monk
Thierry of Amorbach of performances given by four brothers of
the Abbey of Saint-Benoit de Fleury, “two of whom kept to the
‘usual singing’ while the other two ‘provided the accompaniment’.”
This account was used as the basis for reconstructing some of
the organa given here from the Winchester Troper preserved
in the Corpus Christi College library in Cambridge. Very convincing
these reconstructions sound too – although, as is always the
way with students of mediaeval music, there will be as many
different views on the merits of any reconstruction as there
are musicologists to provide it. The later works given here
are based on manuscripts which require a lesser degree of editorial
intervention, although again there may be disagreements as to
the style of performance. Those here are based on Thierry of
Amorbach’s account, with two voices to a part in the earlier
polyphonic pieces.
The only real point of disagreement with these performances
will therefore lie with the use of female voices – which will
certainly not be what the mediaeval monks would have expected.
However, since two of the performers here are also the editors
of the works, it would be churlish to complain, especially when
they sing so well. We have become accustomed to hearing women
singing in pieces of this period as a result of recordings of
the music of Hildegard of Bingen, but these rather plainer and
earlier pieces benefit from the same sort of treatment. The
gently clashing ‘harmonies’ in such pieces as the opening Christus
resurgens reach out across the centuries to join hands
with Tavener - the modern one, that is - and time is annihilated.
Most of the music here is anonymous, but it is interesting to
come across a contrafactum - new words set to an existing
song - based on the love song Bien doit chanter by
the Blondel de Nesle familiar to history students as the troubadour
who supposedly rescued Richard Coeur de Lion from captivity.
This ‘pious’ version is sung unaccompanied, and rather charmingly
spends half of its first verse decrying Blondel’s more conventional
version of passion before getting down to the more serious business
of praising the Virgin Mary. The song Worldes blis
begins unaccompanied, but then expands to include the whole
ensemble.
With the later works on this disc we enter into more familiar
territory, and in the ‘motet’ Hare, hare, hye we find
a drinking song of the sort encountered in such works as Carmina
Burana and which David Munrow first introduced to the modern
world some forty and more years ago. The words include such
lines as “It is a miracle that those Normans haven’t thrown
up.” The final cadence of the Alleluia Nativitas is
borrowed from a similar piece by Pérotin, and pieces like this
bear more than a passing resemblance to music from the Notre
Dame school. It is with the rise of the music of this school
from 1275 onwards that this fascinating and rewarding survey
comes to an end.
The singing, as has been observed, is extremely good. The recording
is also excellent, with plenty of echo but without excess resonance
to cloud the crystal clarity of the individual voices. The booklet
note draws attention to distant bird noises from outside the
church, despite the recordings being made late in the evening
and at night. One would like to think they were attracted by
the music. In any event their vocal contributions are hardly
detectable and need no excuse.
The booklet provides full texts in the original languages –
not only Latin, but mediaeval French and English as well – with
excellent translations into modern English, modern French and
German. The sleeve-notes were originally written in French,
but the English translation is both idiomatic and informative,
and give a very full and detailed list of all the sources employed.
A model of how such material should be presented.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Ensemble Providencia (Maria Andrea Parias and Sarah Richards (sopranos):
Stéphanie Leclerq and Hanna Järveläinen (mezzos)) 