Dufay

L'arbre de mai (The Tree of May) is a terrifically presented album of early Renaissance music, one that tries to place the listener inside the musical culture of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and does a highly imaginative – sometimes overactively imaginative – job of it. The album divides its 19 works into four thematic groups: Love and Youth, the Tree of May, War and the King, and the Evening of Life. Within each group, works by high-Netherlandish composers like Dufay and Compère are mixed with anonymous works of a more popular quality, and vocal works alternate with instrumental dances.

Guillaume Dufay - New Flowers - Santenay (2018) {friends of green sonic CD1710}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (highresaudio.com) -> 239 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 136 Mb
Full Artwork (jpg+pdf) -> 123 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2018 friends of green sonic | CD 1710
Classical / Early Renaissance / Chamber Music

A new blossom: the new beauty of a timeless music. Early music for today: The album "NEW FLOWERS" transports the works of the Renaissance composer Guillaume Dufay (c. 1397-1474) into the here and now of the modern world of the 21st century. Especially today, this music is more interesting and topical than ever: The beauty and contemplative radiance of the compositions gives the listener joy, peace and inner harmony. The music of Guillaume Dufay speaks directly to people. The melodies, harmonies and emotions touch - and go straight to the heart.

The bulk of this disc of music by Isabel Mundry is given to her seven-movement Dufay-Bearbeitungen (2003-2004) for chamber ensemble. These are more than just arrangements, though; Mundry takes the Dufay motets and puts them into a sonic context in which their ancientness is refracted through a thoroughly modern sensibility. She achieves this largely through instrumentation and by creating a mysterious aural environment in which the Dufay pieces play themselves out, and acquire new, illuminating emotional resonance.

British composer Ambrose Field is primarily known for his work in electronic music, much of it using the sounds of the natural world and of industrial and post-industrial society to create gritty and audacious musique concrète soundscapes. On this album, he takes fragments of vocal music by the great fifteenth century Flemish composer Guillaume Dufay and weaves them into allusive electronic landscapes of considerable subtlety.

DuFay Collective are, in a word, brilliant, basically the Pink Martini of the music of the period. Their music never fails to transport you back in time. However, for the most past, medieval music isn't something you plug into the CD player on long drives between cities. This album is an exception. The focus is on medieval dance music of France, England and Italy, and the pieces are light-hearted and "catchy" enough to keep me entertained on replay for hours at a time.

Guillaume Dufay - Chansons - Tetraktys (2005) {Olive Music om 005}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 257 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 141 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 19 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2005 Olive Music | om 005
Classical / Early Renaissance / Medieval / Early Music / Chamber Music

Jill Feldman has appeared under the direction of such distinguished musicians as Frans Brüggen, Andrew Parrot, Jordi Savall and René Jacobs. Kees Boeke has given seminars and master classes in recorder and early music around the world including the Deller Academy (Lacoste, France 1972-1982), Corsi Internazionali di Musica Antica (Urbino, Italy 1975-1982), Early Music Festival, Vancouver and has been artistic director of the International Early Music courses at San Floriano. He has recorded for all the major companies before starting his own label, Olive Music.

This is one of the most beautiful early music discs in the catalog–equally attributable to the music and to the perfectly tuned and blended voices, whose timbres couldn't be more appealing to the ear or more appropriate to the style of the repertoire. The very first track–a charming, gentle, hopeful little piece by Dufay, "Bon jour, bon mois, bon an"–leads us easily into the heart and spirit of this well-conceived program, which seeks to duplicate in music the expressive power and visual beauty of the richly illustrated Books of Hours–lovingly created volumes that were a cherished fixture of religious devotional practice in medieval and Renaissance Europe. Among the composers represented are Dufay, Desprez, Busnoys, Dunstaple, and Ockeghem. Put this at the top of your list.

What did it mean for Guillaume Du Fay (ca. 1397-1474), chameleon-like expert in every musical genre of his day, to compose four settings of the Mass Ordinary toward the end of his life? Looking back from the vantage point of the next generation, when the polyphonic mass reigned supreme, it might be tempting to interpret these works as a self-conscious summa of Du Fay’s career – an achievement akin to Haydn’s London Symphonies or Beethoven’s late string quartets. On a purely musical level these comparisons are apt. Each mass stakes out unique musical terrain; they are often strikingly experimental; and the entire set is shimmeringly beautiful from beginning to end, revealing a composer at the height of his powers.