This was the first
to be produced of a series of recordings
of medieval music which Martin Best
made for the Nimbus label, now, happily,
once again available with the resurgence
of that label. I have already reviewed
three of these recordings: follow the
links for reviews of Forgotten Provence
(NI5445)
the Cantigas of Alfonso X (NI5081)
and Amor de Lonh (NI5544).
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
or that in the Oxford Companion to
Music would make a good starting
point. In brief, they were poet musicians
who flourished in the South of France
in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
writing in the Provençal language,
sometimes known as occitan, more
closely related to Catalan than to the
northern dialect which became standard
French, from which the region of Languedoc
takes its name, oc being the
word for ‘yes’ in that language.
The CD is dedicated
to the work of one person, Guiraut Riquier,
born in Narbonne, c.1230, he died between
1299 and 1300. A Provençal troubadour
poet and composer, he is usually considered
the last of the troubadours, hence the
title of this recording. His 89 extant
poems are, in some sources, assigned
an exact date ranging from 1254 to 1292,
and purport to reveal facts about his
life. But be cautious when poets do
this – Rousseau, generally regarded
as one of the first to give an honest
account of himself, rehashes a story
about being knocked down by a large
animal and concussed, which Montaigne
told some 200 years earlier. Dante’s
account of his meeting with Beatrice
in the Vita Nuova is by no means universally
accepted as factual.
At first sight, therefore,
this CD completes the whole span of
the troubadour tradition, since the
Martin Best Ensemble also offers the
work of Guillaume or Guilhelm IX of
Aquitaine (1071-1127), said to be the
first of his kind, on another Nimbus
CD, Songs of Chivalry (NI5006)
which I intend to review.
But note that the subtitle
bills the recording as ‘The Art and
Times’ (my emphasis) of Guiraut,
since several of the pieces are by that
prolific composer Anon.; track 2 is
by Bertran de Born, track 9 comes from
the Cantigas of Alfonso the Wise
and the final track offers the melody
of a piece by Folquert de Marselha,
Bishop of Toulouse and former troubadour.
The whole effect of the programme, therefore,
is to set the context for Guiraut’s
life and work.
Bertran de Born and
Folquert de Marsalha or Marseille (neither
of them listed in the Concise Grove,
though the Oxford Companion has
an article on Folquert) both flourished
around 1180-96. Works by both also feature
on yet another Martin Best Nimbus CD,
The Dante Troubadours (NI5002)
which I also plan to review in the near
future. Both were involved in the secular
and religious upheavals of the late
twelfth century which in turn had their
effects on the age of Guiraut Riquier.
Bertran was involved
in the conflict between the French and
English kings and their offspring which
affected the whole of Aquitaine. The
one person to emerge with honour from
the conflict was William Marshall, First
Earl of Pembroke, whose deeds are recounted
in the Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal.
(See Elizabeth Chadwick’s novel, The
Greatest Knight, Time Warner, 2006.)
Some of Bertran’s works were dedicated
to Matilda, daughter of Henry II.
Folquert was influential
throughout France, his works being translated
into the language of the North. After
an intense religious conversion he threw
himself wholeheartedly into the crusade
against the Albigensian Cathars which
ultimately destroyed the Provençal
culture of the troubadours. His diocese
of Toulouse appears to have been founded
specifically to combat the Cathars –
see Malcolm Lambert’s The Cathars
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, p.48). Though
he died in the putative year of Guiraut’s
birth, his campaign on behalf of the
Inquisition thus had a direct effect
on Guiraut’s becoming the last of the
line.
The opening pieces
on this CD, therefore, the first describing
the attacks on Beziers and Carcassonne
in 1209, as part of the so-called Albigensian
campaign and the second the melody of
Bertran’s poem in which he refers to
the changes of allegiance, aptly set
the scene for Riquier’s own works. Neither
the text nor translation of Bertran’s
Rassa, tan creis is given, since
the tune alone is featured on the CD,
but the words are relevant to the changing
and troubled times which preceded the
birth of Guiraut : E nos avem chamjat
senhor/Bo guerrier per tornejador.
[We’ve changed our lord, too, a good
warrior for a tournament champion.]
The main forms of Riquier’s
music are the cansos (courtly-love
songs, tracks 3, 8 and 10) and 20 vers
(track 16). All of it is attractive,
as offered here in persuasive performances.
If you have read my other reviews –
better still, if you have bought one
of the earlier recordings – you will
know what to expect from Martin Best.
First and foremost, he has a fine singing
voice. Of course, we do not know exactly
how this music sounded when sung in
the thirteenth century, but it probably
didn’t sound as polished as it does
here. This is medieval music for a modern
audience, despite claims to the contrary
in the booklet that "the attempt
is made to create an authentic 13th
century atmosphere." The amplification
that "the hope is that the attempt
is authentic for today" is closer
to the truth - if I understand this
awkward phrase correctly, a compromise
has been struck.
The account of the
events at Beziers and Carcassonne (track
1) is offered in English from the translation
in A.J. Munthe’s book A Note That
Breaks the Silence. The words are
declaimed – appropriately, Martin Best
has associations with the Royal Shakespeare
Company – and punctuated dramatically
with drumbeats. Be.m clegra (tr.17)
is also spoken in English, though less
dramatically, with the melody on pipe,
psaltery and rebec quietly playing in
the background.
Martin Best’s notes
are very helpful in setting the stormy
themes of Guiraut’s poetry in context,
though he over-simplifies the issue
when he describes the Cathars are returning
to "a simple black-and-white emulation
of early Christianity". There is
much more to it than that, including
the influence of the dualistic sect
the Manichees, to whom St Augustine
once belonged, and a belief that the
world was the province not of God but
of Satan. There is plenty of information
online about the Cathars – not all of
it, unfortunately, reliable – if you
want to find out about them. The most
recent book which I know is Malcolm
D Lambert’s The Cathars to which
I have already referred. Beware of popular
theories which link them to the Holy
Grail and the so-called da Vinci Code.
Some of the details
in the head-note – for example, the
numbers of the two Cantigas de Santa
Maria – have had to be expanded
from what is offered in the booklet.
I have retained Nimbus’s spelling Au
temps d’auost, though the more correct
spelling would be auoust.
Translations only of
the sung texts are given in the booklet
but there is an excellent website
for the original texts of the troubadours,
in some cases with English translations
and midi-file music examples.
The short playing time
may be excusable in the light of the
first appearance of this recording in
the dying days of LP but, in fact, those
final-generation LPs were capable of
well over 60 minutes. Except that I
seem to recall that this was originally
a 12" 45 r.p.m LP. All these Martin
Best recordings are rather short but
42:16 now seems particularly mean.
Small reservations
apart, therefore, this CD may be recommended
alongside the others in the series which
I have reviewed, though the recent Naxos
compilation Time of the Templars,
which I have recently recommended –
see my review
and that
of GH – might make a better introduction
to the music of the period, especially
as those three CDs are offered for not
much more than this one Nimbus disc.
Brian Wilson
Martin Best Medieval Ensemble (Martin
Best (voice, lute, oud, psaltery); Jeremy
Barlow (recorders and pipes); David Corkhill
(nakers, hammer dulcimer, tabors, drums,
bells and timbrel); Alastair McLachlan
(rebecs and fidele)) 
