Sound Recordings
From the inception of our project, it was important to us to maintain close links with performers and to understand how they would be interacting with the materials with which they are presented. To this end, the project team has worked closely with two specialist ensembles, the Orlando Consort and Ensemble Le Basile:
| The Orlando Consort | Ensemble Le Basile |
|
Matthew Venner counter tenor Mark Dobell tenor Angus Smith tenor Donald Greig baritone |
Katharine Hawnt cantus Yvonne Eddy cantus Kirsty Whatley brae harp Marc Lewon lute, gittern Uri Smilansky vielle |
One aspect of this collaboration, which will be discussed in more detail below, was the commissioning of a series of recordings to accompany essays on this website illustrating issues associated with editing and performing. In addition, working with the Orlando consort has lead to an exciting new venture to record the complete polyphonic songs of Machaut using our musical edition. The first of these CDs, dedicated to the songs of the Voir Dit, is available from Hyperion from October 2013.
The partnership between scholars and performers that our project has fostered has opened a meaningful two-way exchange, inviting the editorial team to incorporate feedback from practitioners into later stages of editing and also to request the recording of extracts of particular interest that might not have been recorded in a commercial context. To make the most of this advantageous position, we used these recordings as the kernel around which to generate a series of discussions concerning different aspects of Machaut's oeuvre, its wider cultural context, the task of editing it, and recommendations for using the edition further. In that context, the recordings are incorporated into the prose as appropriate, along with scores of the music performed and links to images of the sources they are based on.
These recorded examples rarely comprise full works, but present instead short sections for comparison between versions, or at most, the first iteration of the complete music. The combinations of performers for each example were conceived to match the discussions to which they are attached. Those examples that are designed to convey a more general appreciation of a work may present combinations appropriate for the concert-hall stage. Other examples are used to make a specific point about a technical aspect of the music, and in these cases instrumentation was chosen to clarify and enhance the audability of the example, and should not, therefore, be taken as recommendations for use in any other performative context.
These recordings were made at St John's Church, Loughton, February 4th-6th, 2013, and produced and edited by Mark Brown, with Dave Hinitt and Dave Rowell as engineers.
The following table gives an overview of the materials recorded for these online sound files, as well as links to the discussions as part of which the scores and sound files appear.
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News
Fortune's Child
Out now on the Hyperion website, Fortune's Child is the most recent recording of Machaut's works from the Orlando Consort. As Fabrice Fitch of Gramophone notes, "five volumes in, Hyperion’s Machaut series shows no sign of running out of puff." Complimenting their performance, Fitch says "the Orlandos project and enunciate Machaut’s French so well that one rarely reaches for the printed text" and he is particularly impressed by Angus Smith's interpretation of 'Dou mal qui m'a longuement'. He further remarks, "as with previous volumes, the programming of this series is deeply impressive."
A Burning Heart
Available now from the Hyperion website, the Orlando Consort's latest CD, A Burning Heart, is already receiving critical acclaim. Blair Sanderson, writing for AllMusic.com, describes the Consort's singing as "wonderfully evocative and full of medieval atmosphere." While Brian Wilson, for MusicWeb International, declares: "I doubt...if either Chaucer or Chrétien could have imagined anything better than the singing on this and the other Orlando Consort Machaut recordings."
***********************STOP PRESS!!!!!!!!************************
The Complete Poetry and Music of Guillaume de Machaut Volume 1 is out now!!!!
Volume 1: The Debate Poems is now available in print.
You can also enjoy the entire volume online via the Middle English Texts Website.
Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer, with art historical commentary by Domenic Leo, and musical commentary by Uri Smilansky, the volume contains Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaigne, Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre, and Le Lay de Plour.
The Dart of Love
Available now from the Hyperion website, The Dart of Love is second in a series of recordings by the Orlando Consort of Machaut's music. It has already received critical acclaim:
The Orlando Consort perform these works with matchless purity of tone and clarity of diction. (Limelight, Australia)
The programme is nicely varied in mood and scoring, ranging from four-voice ballades and motets to a single-voice virelai, and every combination in between … a thoughtful essay by Anne Stone makes audible sense of the many connections between the pieces on this valuable, impressive recording. (Gramophone)
The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript
Full colour facsimile with introductory study by Lawrence Earp, Domenic Leo and Carla Shapreau. Preface by Christopher de Hamel
"It is a vast manuscript of royal luxury, 390 leaves of parchment, 314 mm. by 220 mm., illustrated with 118 enchanting miniatures by a workshop of court illuminators led by the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy.They include pictures of gothic chivalry and romance, with mythology and natural history. Music is included on 235 pages of the manuscript, with almost the entire corpus of the ballades, lais and motets of Machaut, as well as his great polyphonic setting of the Mass, the four-part Messe de Nostre-Dame.The manuscript has never before been photographed in its entirety or reproduced in colour."
"Vol. 1 introductory study (225 pages colour/mono), vol. 2 facsimile (789 full colour pages) on 150gsm matt art paper. Full size reproduction, hard bound in buckram, presented in hard slipcover."
Available now from DIAMM Publications.
The Art of Grafted Song: Citation and Allusion in the Age of Machaut by Yolanda Plumley
Available now from Oxford University Press.
"Presents the first detailed exploration of citational practices in the song-writing tradition of fourteenth-century France. The first monograph-length study on the Ars nova chanson with new evidence about the emergence of the new polyphonic chanson. Provides new evidence about the circle of poets and composers who engaged with Machaut and created a new style of poetry and song. Explores little studied collections of lyrics and songs of the period and provides fresh insights and perspectives on Machaut's works."
New Voir Dit CD
Available now from the Hyperion website.
This new CD from the acclaimed Orlando Consort showcases songs from Machaut's Livre dou Voir Dit (‘Book of the True Tale’). The recording was inspired by collaborative work between our project team and the Orlando Consort who have been trialling the new edition being produced. You can watch a video of the consort discussing their recording on YouTube.
It has already received critical acclaim: David Fallows for Gramophone writes:
To my ears, this is a dream team, with the enormously experienced Donald Greig and Angus Smith alongside ...Matthew Venner and Mark Dobell, who display the most magnificent articulation of the texts alongside the understanding of the lines gained from their senior colleagues...always dead in tune, always beautifully balanced...the unforgettable track here is Angus Smith performing the 'Lay de Bon Esperance', over 20 minutes of unaccompanied solo singing...He's terrific.
