Nancy Hadden

Through the songs or ‘chansons’, we are given the chance to be transported back to a point when the word, note, instrument and performer collided to document impressions of a world lived long ago and yet with which we share so much. As songs that had a vibrant life beyond the words, we are afforded an entrance into the evergreen world of instrumental music of the Renaissance, into music that filled the taverns and dwellings of Paris and beyond. This is why these works maintain such relevance for us today. For Chansons musicales is not simply an exercise in museum-driven reconstruction, notwithstanding the world-class research that underpins the project. These are living and breathing works.

Despite being one of the major figures in the history of the flute, Michel de la Barre is almost wholly absent from the current recording catalogue. True, his reputation lay more with his playing than his composing, but the fact remains that he was the first person ever to publish solo music specifically for flute, and that his output of 18 books of flute music between 1694 and 1725 was a vital factor in the emergence of that instrument as one of the most popular of the eighteenth century.

This performance can be labeled Portuguese only loosely, since many of the pieces are sung in Spanish, or taken from Spanish manuscripts, or more properly Galician than Lusitanian. But hey! Who cares? Really artful recordings of any Iberian music of the 'Golden Age' are not sprouting from the cork trees even today. Male alto Gerard Lesne has seldom recorded pre-Baroque chansons, and it's a thrill to hear what he can do with them. Track 9, for instance, the Latin cantiga "Clamabat autem mulier" by Mudarra, takes Lesne from his usual alto register down seamlessly into his tenor chest voice. Wow! Not every counter-tenor can do that and still sound musical!

Though chiefly celebrated now, as in his own day, as an opera composer, Hasse wrote a significant quantity of sacred pieces and much delightful chamber music for voices and instruments. This new disc offers a well-chosen and stylishly performed selection, almost entirely belonging to the last mentioned category. He was a younger contemporary and compatriot of Bach, Handel and Telemann, whose music by and large reflected the rococo taste for pleasing melodies with lightly textured and graceful accompaniments. Doctor Burney was fulsome in his tribute to Hasse, describing him as ''equally a friend to poetry and the voice''. The two cantatas, aria and ballads performed in this programme would seem to bear out Burney's opinion.

As England's greatest composer of the Baroque, Henry Purcell was dubbed the "Orpheus Britannicus" for his ability to combine pungent English counterpoint with expressive, flexible, and dramatic word settings. While he did write instrumental music, including the important viol fantasias, the vast majority of his output was in the vocal/choral realm. His only opera, Dido and Aeneas, divulged his sheer mastery in the handling of the work's vast expressive canvas, which included lively dance numbers, passionate arias and rollicking choruses. Purcell also wrote much incidental music for stage productions, including that for Dryden's King Arthur. His church music includes many anthems, devotional songs, and other sacred works, but few items for Anglican services.

With this special edition for the English-speaking countries (2 CDs & 100 pages booklet, in two different editions: Spanish or English), Cantus tries to fill an important gap. Given that our most important aim is the diffusion of early music through recordings of the highest musical quality, presented with booklets containing the best possible essays (informative, accessible, readable, updated), we felt that preparing this dictionary (or guide) on the most important instruments used during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance could be useful and important.