Le Grand Embrasement: Music for a Mad King
Into the Winds
rec. 2024, Église Notre-Dame de Centeilles, France
Reviewed as a download
Ricercar RIC476 [65]
New from Ricercar comes this fascinating compendium of instrumental music from a period in music little known and appreciated. In the Hundred Years’ War, France was a turbulent and tough place to live. There were years of relative calm and the period from 1380 to 1410 could, supposedly, be categorised thus. In April 1377, over the channel in England, Edward III had died and his ten-year-old son succeeded to the throne. A couple of months later in France the great composer of the Ars nova, Guillaume de Machaut also died. His legacy of motets, lais, virelais, rondeaux and ballades, mostly on the theme of courtly love, would endure, but a new style would also emerge.
When Charles VI of France was crowned, aged eleven at Reims in November 1380 he entered the city preceded by thirty trumpets with the full pomp of coronation fever in the air. After a period of regency, he asserted himself and ruled from 1388. From 1392 however, Charles was showing signs of mental strain. On campaign in that stifling summer, suffering from heat exhaustion and delirious, he attacked his own retinue and was declared mad by his physicians. Froissart later wrote: “far out of the way, no medicine could help him”. France was from then on embroiled in a bitter rivalry for control between Charles’ brother and young wife on one side and the powerful dukedom of Burgundy on the other. This civil war went on for years and taking advantage of it in 1415, Henry V of England invaded France. Agincourt preceded the Treaty of Troyes by over four years. By that act, Henry became heir to the throne of France whose shame was in that moment at its nadir. Of course, Henry would never accede, as he died in August 1422, two months before Charles VI.
The French musicians of Into the Winds have devised a programme to portray these troubled years. It was originally conceived as a concert that would interpose music with spoken extracts from medieval chronicles. There are three players who play predominantly on shawms and recorders, a trumpeter and a percussionist. The group are joined on some tracks by the legendary Pierre Hamon, who is well known as an expert on medieval wind instruments. On this disc he plays bagpipes, but I suspect his influence and expertise with these scores pervades the whole recital, not just the pieces he guests on.
The shawm is a reed instrument that could be classed as an early ancestor to the oboe. When played with the trumpet of Rémi Lécorché, we experience the haut (loud) voice of the group. They also turn often to their collection of bas (soft) instruments for many pieces in this program. These recorders, mostly of the wide bore variety, I think, sound marvellous and the playing of the ensemble has the style and grace to really accentuate their timbre. The variety of music here is well-chosen, offering a vivid kaleidoscope of colour.
Many of the composers on the record will be unknown to most listeners. Following Machaut’s death, a style of music known as Ars subtilior became prevalent in France. It was rhythmically complex and mostly secular; examples are tracks 3, 12 or 23. By the 1420s, however, the first great composers of the Franco-Flemish school were beginning to emerge: Dufay, Binchois, Busnois. Their three-part, polyphonic, Burgundian chansons would become the new music of the time. What we have on this record is the legacy of that generation of musicians who came in between these two schools, and one can often hear the blending of both styles. This music would often be performed at court and by minstrels. There is no vocal music in the program but on reflection, a little of that might have gone a long way in enhancing for us listeners that image of the court, the chambers and the battlefield.
The CD is divided into eight sections:
- 1380 The Coronation of Charles VI
- 1388 Charles VI reigns alone
- 1392 The King is struck by a grave illness
- 1407 The Duke of Orléans is slain within the city of Paris
- 1415 Agincourt
- 1419 John of Burgundy is murdered by the Dauphin at Montereau
- 1420 The Treaty of Troyes
- 1422 Death and funeral of Charles VI
Each chapter has four tracks. There are some splendid fanfares that reconstruct dazzling royal processions and other scenes of festive pageantry and knightly comings and goings. They are not all French either – I particularly like the one by Mönch von Salzburg. Intimacy and courtly manners are evoked, too, particularly in the second chapter (1380) and much of the sixth and seventh (1419/20). In Ja Falla (track 5), a great crescendo started by Adrien Reboisson on the dolzaina (I think) brings a sultry Spanish taste to the menu that I found surprising but intoxicating.
The chapter focussing of the madness of the King is very well done. Je ris, je chante (track 10) and its partner Bonté, bialté (track 11) both by Cesaris employ harmonic shifts and counterpoint that, cleverly in this context, convey the strange, unhinged world inside the mind of the troubled King. The booklet notes by Adrien Reboisson and Mathias Le Rider are very useful and informative. Le Rider actually deconstructs Je ris, je chante, for us, explaining how the three parts: cantus, tenor and contratenor move in unison and at odds with each other to create its musical effect.
Being a lover of history, I enjoy being reminded of those scenes like the Duke of Orléans’ assassination by John the Fearless in 1407 and the inevitable act of revenge when John himself was dispatched by the Dauphin and future King Charles VII on the bridge across the Seine at Montereau. I only wish a chapter had been found for Charles VI’s long-suffering Queen, Isabeau. Wedded to Charles aged fourteen, having met him only three days before, she was often treated terribly by the King in his worst bouts of insanity: “Who is this woman obstructing my view? Find out what she wants and stop her from annoying and bothering me.” Her priority was always her sons and the proper succession; the future Charles VII was the third Dauphin.
Another scene in the life of Charles VI that I am surprised Into the Winds do not portray is the famous Bal des Ardents (Ball of the Burning Men). Here Charles VI, in an evening entertainment characterised by tomfoolery, dressed himself and six of his companions in the disguise of wild men of the forest. Due to a mishap with a burning torch, he severely burned himself, others and at least one nobleman died. The public of Paris were appalled at this type of reckless behaviour at court. The Battle at Agincourt is of course included. The sequence begins with a gentle Ave Maria and ends with the ubiquitous Agincourt Carol. Sandwiched between these is a lovely nostalgic song: Vaylle que vaylle, il faut s’aseürer. This for me definitely evokes images of the French, rather than the English, life then – understandable in this narrative.
The final chapter opens with one of Pierre Hamon’s contributions on bagpipes: Par ung regart des deux biaulx yeux (track 29). This sets the scene as the mourners pass up towards the Abbey of Saint-Denis for the funeral of the King. The tolling bell and mournful tone of the Lantins piece are followed by two splendidly evocative works by Gilet Velut and Oswald von Wolkenstein that end the recital.
This is not Into the Winds’ first record. In May 2022, at the same venue in the South of France, they made a record of dance music called Le Parfaict Danser for Ricercar. That record explored a wide variety of dance forms like the estampie, the basse-danse, pavanes and saltarelli. It can be recommended alongside this new one in which I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of the music with the history. The cover depicts a detail of the Emperor Augustus as he is shown a vision of the Blessed Virgin with the infant Christ, by the mythical Tiburtine Sybil. Augustus’ hands are raised as he beholds this wonder. It would not have been my choice of image to depict the madness of a King. I wonder where producer and label supremo Jérôme Lejeune will steer this talented group of musicians next. Perhaps we will be at the court of Philip the Good. Maybe Joan of Arc will make an appearance? Perchance we will end up in the world of Popes and Antipopes in Avignon or Pisa – or maybe we will be on the road to Canterbury with Chaucer’s colourful pilgrims. I await with interest.
Philip Harrison
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Contents:
anon: Tuba Gallicalis
anon: Bobik Blasen
anon: Quiconques veut d’amours joïr
Magister Grimace: Alarme, alarme
anon: Ja Falla
anon: Or sus, vous dormés trop
Johannes Haucourt: Je demande ma bienvenue
anon: Ho, Ho, Ho
Richard de Bellengues dit Cardot: Pour une fois et pour toute ma vye
Cesaris: Je ris, je chante, je m’esbas
Cesaris: Bonté, bialté
Cordier: Tant ay de plaisir et de desplaisance
Guillaume Le Grant: Pour l’amour de mon bel amy
Mönch von Salzburg: Das haizt dy trumpet und ist gut zu blasen
Adam: A temps vendra celle journée
Johannes Le Grant: Se liesse est de ma partie
Johannes Le Grant: Entre vous, nouviaux mariés
anon: Hail, Mary, full of grace
Jacobus Coutreman: Vaylle que vaylle, il faut s’aseürer
anon: Deo gracia, Anglia (Agincourt Carol)
Tapissier: Sanctus
Lebertoul: Las, que me demanderoye
Cordier: Je suis celuy qui veul toudis servir
Nicole Grenon: La plus belle et doulce figure
Lebertoul: Depuis un peu un joyeux parlement
Nicole Grenon: Nova vobis gaudia
Fontaine: J’ayme bien celui qui s’en va
anon: A cheval, tout homme, a cheval
Johannes Franchois De Gemblaco: Par ung regart des deux biaulx yeux
Lantins: Grant ennuy m’est
Velut: Summe Summy, tu patris unice
Wolkenstein: Wolauff wir wellen slaffen
