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The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - Motets and Songs
from 13th Century France Je ne chant pas / Talens m’est pris / APTATUR
/ OMNES abde [2:19] Trois sereurs / Trois sereurs / Trois
sereurs / PERLUSTRAVIT bcde [2:11] BLONDEL DE NESLE (fl.1180-1200)En tous tans
que vente bisea [2:50] Plus bele que flors / Quant revient / L’autrier
jouer / FLOS FILIUS EIUS abcd [1:15] Par un matinet / He, sire! / He, bergier! /
EIUS bcde [4:37] De la virge Katerine / Quant froidure / Agmina
milicie / AGMINA abce [2:15] COLIN MUSET (fl.1200-1250)Trop volentiers chanteroiea [3:44] Ave parens / Ad gratie / AVE MARIA abd [1:35] Super te Jerusalem / Sed fulsit virginitas /
PRIMUS TENOR / DOMINUS abcd [1:10] A vous douce debonnaireb [3:08] Mout souvent / Mout ai este en dolour / MULIERUM bcd [2:50] BERNART DE VENTADORN (1125-1195)Can vei la lauzeta
moverd [3:43] Quant voi l’aloete / Diex! je ne m’en partire
ja / NEUMA bcd [1:52] En non Dieu / Quant voi la rose / NOBIS bcd [2:41] GAUTIER DE DARGIES (c.1165-after
1236)Autres que je ne sueill lasb [4:01] Je m’en vois /Tels a mout / OMNES abf [2:40] Festa januariabcd [2:18]
Gothic Voices :
(Margaret Philpot (alto)a;
Rogers Covey-Crump (tenor)b; Rufus Muller (tenor)c;
Leigh Nixon (tenor)d; Stephen Charlesworth (baritone)e)/Christopher
Page (medieval harp)f
rec. St Cross Hospital Church, Winchester, 21-23 March 1990.
DDD.
Booklet with notes in English and French, texts and English
translations HYPERION
HELIOS CDH55273 [46:26]
This is the
fourth Hyperion reissue of medieval music performed by Gothic
Voices which I have reviewed recently. As with The Castle
of Fair Welcome (CDH55274), The Spirits of England
and France (CDH55281) and The Garden of Zephirus (CDH55289)
I was delighted to welcome its return and to urge Hyperion
to reissue the remaining discs in the series – if only to
give me the chance to replace booklets from the original
full-price issues which have become dog-eared with regular
use. I particularly await the reissue of The Service of
Venus and Mars, for which I have had to print my own
replacement booklet.
The title of
the current CD, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and
the cover illustration of a young cleric apparently about
to purchase the attentions of a young woman with a tambour,
urged on by a lascivious demon on the left and admonished
by a Dominican friar on the right, remind us of the concept
familiar throughout the Middle Ages of the world as the stage
of conflict between good and evil, right and wrong, heaven
and hell. We may think the girl with the tambour, apparently
about to take part in a carole or ring-dance, innocent
enough, but medieval moralists had different ideas about
dancing. Robert Manning of Brunne in his long poem Handlyng
Synne, relating the story of the Mad Dancers of Colbek,
is quite clear that caroles, wrestling, summer games,
interludes (short plays – the dialogue between the shepherd
and his better in track 5 of the CD is an example), singing,
beating a drum or playing a pipe are all forbidden as sacrilege
while the priest stands at the altar saying Mass:
Karolles, wrastlynges,
or somour games,
Whoso ever haunteth any
swyche shames
Yn cherche, other yn chercheyerd,
Of sacrylage he may be
aferd;
Of entyrludes, or syngynge,
Or tabure bete, or other
pypynge –
Alle swyche thing forboden
es
Whyle the prest stondeth
at messe.
Hearing a group
of women outside his church at Christmas singing a fairly
harmless song about Bevo riding through the leafy wood with
his beloved Merswyne, a priest stormed out and cursed them
with St Vitus’ Dance for the next year, forgetting that his
own daughter was one of them and was thus cursed to dance
endlessly till the following Christmas.
In Langland’s
poem Piers Plowman, the Dreamer, slumbering in a pleasant
spot near the Malvern Hills, sees the Tower of Heavenly Truth
on a hill above a deep valley, the devil’s dungeon or castle,
with the world, a fair field full of folk, poised between
them, “working and wandering as the world asketh”:
I seigh a tour on a toft
trieliche ymaked,
A deep dale bynethe, a
dongeon therinne,
With depe diches and derke
and dredfulle of sighte.
A fair feeld ful of folk
fond I ther bitwene –
Of alle manere of men,
the meene and the riche,
Werchyng and wandering
as the world asketh. [B Prol. 14-19]
For Langland, just as for
the priest of Kolbek, only serious physical or spiritual
work can bring the people on this field to the Tower of Truth.
Even among the religious there is a sharp distinction between
those destined for heaven and hell: only those who fast and
pray for heaven’s sake – if they are anchorites or hermits
they must stay in their cells – will be saved; those who
neglect their duties to gad about in “lecherous life-style
to please their bodies” will fail:
In preieres and penaunce
putten hem manye,
Al for love of Oure Lord
lyveden ful streyte
In hope to have hevenriche
blisse –
As ancres and heremites
that holden hem in hire selles,
Coveiten nought in contree
to cairen aboute
For no likerous liflode
hire likame to plese. [B. Prol. 25-30]
Because of
this close connection between the heavenly, worldly and hellish,
it is sometimes not possible for the modern reader or listener
to distinguish the purpose of medieval poems and music: a
poem or song which sounds as if it is written in praise of
an earthly woman may well be in praise of the Virgin Mary.
To illustrate this diversity of themes, Christopher Page
has chosen a number of motets from 13th-century
France, sacred and secular, most of them with two or more
texts sung simultaneously. The modern ear finds it difficult
to distinguish between the religious and worldly in these
pieces and, for once, this is not due to the distance of
time: the same was probably true for the original audience.
Sometimes two
or more texts combine religious and courtly-love themes.
Track 6 offers a French text extolling Saint Catherine, a
French text on the singer’s longing for his beloved, which
the Spring and the singing of the birds awaken, and finally
a Latin text by Philippe the Chancellor also in praise of
St Catherine. In the Latin text, Catherine is not named:
the listener is expected to deduce that it is she from the
references to her overcoming the arguments of the Greek sophists
who tried to persuade her to marry. (Medieval poetry and
music are often allusive in this manner: the Catherine legend
was so well-known in France and England that it was thought
unnecessary to name the saint.) This track is one of the
most complicated on the disc; it is almost impossible to
follow the separate texts even with the booklet in hand.
Hyperion have chosen it to illustrate the CD on their website; prospective
purchasers will obtain a fair idea from it of the music on
offer on this CD.
Track 7, Colin
Muset’s Trop volontiers, track 10, A vous douce
debonnaire, and Festa januaria, a rousing piece
which rounds off the disc, are the only pieces here with
just one text and, as such, probably the most amenable to
the modern listener.
There are no
well-known names here, no Perotins or Machauts; indeed, most
of the pieces are by that prolific author Anon. Of the named
composers Blondel de Nesle is perhaps the most famous, since
he was the minstrel who was instrumental in freeing Richard
the Lion-heart from captivity. More music by Blondel – actually
12th- rather than 13th-century despite
the sub-title of the disc – is included on another Gothic
Voices compilation, Music for the Lion-hearted King,
which must be due for an imminent reincarnation on Helios.
Bernart de
Ventadorn was one of the prime movers of the early development
of fin amors or courtly-love poetry in the South of
France, surely deserving of more than one reference, and
that a footnote, in C S Lewis’s classic The Allegory of
Love. He is strictly not French but Occitan or Provençal,
not a trouvère but a troubadour; his canson, Can
vei la lauzeta mover, on this disc, is one of the most
best-known items in the Occitan repertoire. Bernart’s inclusion
extends the range of this CD but adds to the linguistic complications.
The booklet offers English translations of all the words
but seems to assume that French readers – there are French
notes, but no translations – will be able to cope with 13th-century
French and Provençal.
If Christopher
Page’s enthusiastic campaign for medieval music has a fault
it is that he tends to assume too much in his listeners,
in this and other Hyperion booklets of notes. Here the booklet
does its best to inform the listener of the principle behind
these multi-layered motets but, though it does so effectively
within its own limits, the advice to read further on page
14 is timely. The item on the motet in the New Grove and
an article by Christopher Page are recommended there. The Concise
Grove version of the article can be obtained. Type ‘motet’ into
the Grove box half-way down the page, then click on the word ‘motet’ from
the choices offered. Then type ‘ars antiqua’ into the same
Grove box.
Of the many
CDs of medieval music already reissued or due to be reissued
on Hyperion’s Helios label, this is not the place to begin.
Listen to the sample track to which I have referred; if you
do not like what you hear, this disc is probably not for
you: though I do not wish to put anyone off, you may be better
to try one of the other CDs which I have named at the start
of this review. If, like me, you find this music entrancing,
the singing of the Gothic Voices is of the usually high standard
and the recording, in the appropriately medieval setting
of the Holy Cross Hospital at Winchester, where travellers
used to be able to demand a free dole of food and water,
is up to Hyperion’s usually high standards. As with other
reissued Gothic Voices recordings, the short playing time
is made up for by the reasonable price of the disc.
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