Guillaume de Chassy Faraway So Close

The motets of Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) are complicated works. Even casual listeners will notice that each of the three lines of music has its own text – one rapid and wordy, one moderate in speed, and one just a few words long. Musically they contain structural intricacies to which scholars devote pleasant lifetimes of research in old French libraries. Yet the interpretation of even music as arcane as this depends on the spirit of the age. Rationalists of earlier decades performed Machaut with rather harsh exactitude, seeking to clarify the subtle repetition schemes of Machaut's motets and polyphonic songs. But the Hilliard Ensemble, of the Self generation, focuses on Machaut as a creative figure with, to quote the liner notes, "a morbidly sensitive inner life."

Machaut's Genius is fully recognized, but his monodic works deserve to be better known. He was the last trouvere, poet and composer, and with him died the monodic world of the learned composers of the west. His virelais, or 'chansons balladees' as he preferred to call them, have a trace of folk art about them, while being exquisitely wrought products of a writer of poetry and melodies so natural as to create an impression of utter effortlessness. They are songs to dance to, to hum to oneself, with frequent repeated sections and a compelling charm.

The motets of Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) are complicated works. Even casual listeners will notice that each of the three lines of music has its own text – one rapid and wordy, one moderate in speed, and one just a few words long. Musically they contain structural intricacies to which scholars devote pleasant lifetimes of research in old French libraries. Yet the interpretation of even music as arcane as this depends on the spirit of the age. Rationalists of earlier decades performed Machaut with rather harsh exactitude, seeking to clarify the subtle repetition schemes of Machaut's motets and polyphonic songs.

Constantly in search of eclectic and meaningful programmes, the soprano Anna Prohaska here celebrates ‘life in death’. An ambitious programme, conceived with Robin Peter Müller and his ensemble La Folia, which takes us on a journey across the centuries and through many different countries, with French chansons of the Middle Ages (including one by Guillaume de Machaut), seventeenth-century Italian pieces by Luigi Rossi, Francesco Cavalli and Barbara Strozzi, German composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Dietrich Buxtehude, Christoph Graupner, Franz Tunder) and the English luminaries Henry Purcell… plus John Lennon and Paul McCartney. A musical and spiritual quest that even takes in a detour to North America with a universally known song by Leonard Cohen.

Guillaume de Machaut - Les Motets - Ensemble Musica Nova (2011) {2CD Set Aeon AECD1108 rec 2002}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 426 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 219 Mb
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© 2002, 2011 Aeon | AECD 1108
Classical / Medieval / Early Music / 4th Century

Complete Motets of Machaut (re-release) Since the beauty, richness and diversity of such an oeuvre made it impossible to choose amongst the 23 motets by the Canon of Reims, the Musica Nova ensemble decided to embark on the adventure of a complete recording. Two years of work and research were necessary for putting this programme together, as the musicians strove for an in-depth approach to each motet in terms of both style and an instrumentation made possible by the very structure of the ensemble. This disc, which had a resounding critical success when first released, offers the first complete translation in modern French of Guillaume de Machaut's motets. An indispensable set!

Guillaume de Machaut is the first “famous” composer in western musical history. In his time, the Middle Ages, most composers delivered their works anonymously (as part of their clerical duties), but Machaut was considered such a master of his creative art that he presented his works under his own name. He was in service of the highest monarchs, among whom Charles V, King of France. Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” is the first polyphonic Mass written, a complicated structure full of ingenious compositorial techniques. But even without the theoretical knowledge we are still spellbound by the haunting beauty and mystery of this masterpiece.

Much-awaited has been the new recording of the Machaut Messe de Nostre Dame from Bjorn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix, one of Glossas long- standing artistic family members. Following on from the trio of discs devoted to music in the spirit of the medieval master draughtsman Villard de Honnecourt the Antwerp-based ensemble currently in residence at the Fondation Royaumont in France has now turned to the first-known composer of an integral mass cycle: Guillaume de Machaut, who was a canon at Reims Cathedral in the fourteenth century.

As with so many of the best early music ensembles performing today, the musical performances of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois have been inextricably linked with profound musical scholarship and with the leadership of a single powerful personality. For the Ensemble Gilles Binchois, this personality remains its founder and director, Dominique Vellard.