Marie Flore Tout Dit

The Mass by Machaut is the earliest complete setting of the Mass text that we have. It was composed for performance in a specific church (in which this recording is made) for a specific occasion and has performance connections to the composer and his family. The performance is excellent and the recording quite clear, especially the mass, using the acoustic of a large stone church.

The pure voices of Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, and Torunn Østrem Ossum combine to make Trio Mediaeval a sensation among early music fans. Yet Soir, dit-elle is largely an album of contemporary works written especially for this group by such active composers as Gavin Bryars, Ivan Moody, Andrew Smith, and Oleh Harkavyy. With the exception of the late medieval Missa Alma redemptoris mater by Leonel Power and the twelfth century chant on which it is based, the works are modern imitations in the medieval ecclesiastical style.

Known for its daring and youthful performances, the ensemble Les Barocudas makes its ATMA Classique recording debut with La Peste, a musical journey that explores the theme of the plague. The members of the Montreal-based trio, Marie Nadeau-Tremblay (violin), Ryan Gallagher (viola da gamba), and Nathan Mondry (harpsichord), have compiled a program in which each piece corresponds with an episode or aspect of this 17th century pandemic. All of the composers selected for this album Schmelzer, Castello, Fontana, Pandolfi, Rossi, Farina were violinists, and all of them were affected by the plague, in some cases, fatally.

Les Kapsber’girls, an ensemble of four singers and instrumentalists directed by the lutenist Albane Imbs, has already released its debut album (Che fai tù?, released on Muso) which received several awards. The group now joins Alpha for several recordings, starting with Vous avez dit Brunettes? – ‘brunettes’ being the name of the chansons that lovers crooned in each others’ ears by the Bassin d’Apollon or among the groves of the Petit Trianon at Versailles Palace, undeniably light in character yet powerfully authentic. Seventeenth-century France was home to a host of artists whose talent served the nobility and the bourgeoisie, who were extremely partial to these airs. Performing them as vocal solos or duets with lute or viol, Les Kapsber’girls bring back to life, more than three centuries later, these works published by Ballard & Fils, printers to the Sun King, alongside such little-known composers as Julie Pinel and Giuseppe Saggione.