Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-1377)
A lover’s death
The Orlando Consort
rec. 2023, St John the Baptist, Loughton, UK
Texts and translations included
Reviewed as a 16/44 FLAC download
Hyperion CDA68430 [68]
The so-called Court of Love instituted by the legendary Eleanor of Aquitaine around 1170 was a centre for chivalry, intellect and culture. This wealthy and influential patron of the arts enriched not only the lives of poets and troubadours in Poitiers, but as Queen and Regent of both France and England at different times, was a hugely important and fascinating historical figure, too. The art of Courtly Love which developed in the 13th Century, spread out from Occitania through Europe fostering a tradition of trouvères in Northern France and Minnesänger in German territories and reached its zenith with the refined blend of poetry and music penned by Guillaume de Machaut in the mid-14th century.
This cult of ideal love and a view of life that the French would call the douceur de vivre coincided with the establishment of centres of learning; universities were founded and flourished at Bologna, Paris and Oxford. In addition to educating young minds in medicine, law, philosophy and music, they began to emerge as centres of intellectual power, too.
Machaut may have been influenced by such illustrious wordsmiths as Dante (1265-1321) and Petrarch (an almost exact contemporary with dates: 1304-1374) both masters of medieval love poetry. I have not seen any academic vindication of this but I also have a hunch Machaut got a lot from the writings too of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) known mostly for his works of theology and philosophy but whose prayers move with a rhythm and flow that I also feel when I read Machaut.
The Orlando Consort’s final CD in their Machaut edition and indeed their final record (they disbanded in Summer 2023) is based largely of Motets, Ballades, Rondeaux and Virelais on texts of love, on noble ladies, their sweet and capricious natures, their graceful pleasing glances and their disposition to wickedness.
There is good variety of form in the program if not so much in subject content. The four motets are all fairly early works in Machaut’s corpus. We get six Ballades, three are early 2vv examples while three are later 3vv compositions. Finally, we are treated to three Rondeaux and four Virelais, one of which is in two parts. Some of this music has been recorded before and I will make some comparisons later in the review as I did in my previous two Machaut postings; some pieces are rarities on disc and thus important to the discographic record.
The Orlando Consort formed in 1988 has been making records since 1990. I counted at least five on the Metronome label (I have the Dunstable record they did with them), five on Archiv (DG) all main-stream releases which did well at the time (1996-99), at least eight with Harmonia Mundi from 1999 to about 2007 and then a final flowering relationship with Hyperion which began with the first Machaut CD in 2012 and ends with this disc.
During this time the quartet of countertenor, two tenors and baritone changed a little but their style was consistent and their quality maintained. Countertenor Robert Harre-Jones was taking the high lines up to the end of the Harmonia Mundi era, he was followed by Matthew Venner. Tenor Charles Daniels, perhaps a name known to more readers was a member until 2003 and was then succeeded by Mark Dobell. Founding members Angus Smith and Donald Greig were ever present.
In this last CD of the series we can actually make a comparison in Je ne cuit pas B14 between The Orlando Consort of 2023 and the same group in 1997 recorded by Archiv in their first Machaut recording, the charming and very recommendable Dreams in the Pleasure Garden. Here the singers recorded four Rondeaux, seven Ballades and three Virelais in a warmly resonant church called St. Osdag, a little North of Hanover in a village called Mandelsloh. The disc is excellent, the programming is intelligent and at 78 minutes it is good value. I don’t know how easy it is to obtain a physical CD copy but it will be available on the normal streaming platforms and as a download, I am sure. B14 is actually quite unusual as it is written from the perspective of the female. It is a joyful and carefree exaltation of thanks for a love gratefully received, a love which nourishes and brings naught but happiness and merriment. On Hyperion, Matthew Venner is serene and pure of tone and has the text in the cantus. Mark Dobell is taking the tenor part of the work and vocalises. Nearly 26 years earlier Robert Harre-Jones duets with Charles Daniels. The acoustical differences are marked, interpretively they contrast less although the older performance seems to have a little more subtlety. Both are excellent versions of the Ballade which, considering its bare two-part texture, is an amazingly satisfying construction.
A famous box-set in the LP era was The Art of Courtly Love on EMI featuring The Early Music Consort of London under David Munrow. The first disc in the three-record set was devoted to Machaut and his Age and featured three items on the current CD. In M10 which is a 3vv Motet countertenors Charles Brett and James Bowman take the texted triplum and motetus parts whilst Alan Lumsden plays the slower repeated patterns of the tenor line on a trumpet. Next in B19 a 3vv Ballade from a timid lover who is quite overcome in his longings, we have tenor Martyn Hill with the text whilst the other two parts are given to fiddle and bass rebec (a kind of early cello). Finally this influential record had on it the famous Douce dame jolie V4 which Martyn Hill sang accompanied by chorus and the whole drums and whistles of the consort! It is quite a different way of performing Machaut to that adopted and developed by The Orlando Consort but it works. The music is robust enough to take it.
This CD actually starts with the Motet M10 which in its text refers to the lover’s burning heart that will set him ablaze and surely be the end of him. In this setting and in B19 The Orlando Consort’s characteristic elegance and gentleness are again spotlighted. I am very fond of the Ballade in particular. This account of it is nuanced but does not displace an earlier one which I will get to very soon. A relative disappointment in the current program is that oft-recorded Virelai Douce dame jolie. Perhaps I shouldn’t have dug out the vigorous Munrow, as after that Donald Greig’s solo version seems a little dull.
In my previous reviews of the last two Machaut Edition records I paid tribute to the epoch-making Gothic Voices disc of forty years ago, namely The Mirror of Narcissus. In that wonderous treasure of a record we can hear Ballades 4, 19 and the aforementioned Douce dame jolie, all of which feature on our current Hyperion release. The Orlando Consort give B4 in a 2 voice version with Mark Dobell and Donald Greig. Blue Heron on their record offer the same work also in 2vv (in what is a beautiful contemplative performance expanded to 5:37 as opposed to The Orlando Consort’s 4:35). Gothic Voices give us B4 in 3 parts involving Margaret Philpot, Rogers Covey-Crump and Andrew King. It is a sublime account of the early yet magnificent work. “I have no pleasure, no joy, nor do I sing anymore as I used to”. In B19 Gothic Voices are heavenly. The blending of Margaret Philpot with Rogers Covey-Crump is a very special sound and a great advert for early music generally I think.
In considering the remaining pieces on The Orlando Consort’s last record allow me to draw attention to a few more highlights. In the selection of Motets we are offered M19 an interesting vita of Saint Quentin who was revered in Northern France. Machaut’s Motets (the form was considered the paragon of the Ars Musica) are quite short and apart from 3 late examples they all date from quite early in his career. This one may come from as early as 1335.
Of the Ballades we have already discussed three examples. De petit po B18 was at the time one of Machaut’s most popular compositions and exists in numerous manuscripts across Europe. It is in three voices here but the notes (excellent as always) tell us it exists in two and four part versions too. In this work our singers keep up a pulsating rhythm and vigour that I find nicely effective for the work.
B40 may well be one of Machaut’s very last works. The lyrics are once again pure courtly love. The ardour and devotion is intense. It is hard for us to grasp today how noble it must have seemed to the contemporary audience for a lover to devote his whole being, his whole life to the pursuit and worship of one chaste, pure yet ultimately disdainful lady.
Machaut lived through some fascinating times. I have narrated some of the events he would have been involved with or aware of in my recent Machaut reviews but there were other big things happening too that I haven’t alluded to. One historical episode that must have had an effect on Machaut and the circles he worked in was the so-called Avignon Papacy. From 1309 onwards due to the huge influential reach of the French King Philip IV the seat of the Roman Catholic church moved from Rome to the Papal enclave of Avignon in the Kingdom of Arles. There it stayed for 67 years. After moving back to Rome there then followed a period of Antipopes and a schism in the church. A mini Ice-Age, the Black Death, revolts, wars; perhaps one can understand why Machaut thought some diversionary love poetry and charming music might be so necessary after-all.
In Machaut’s Rondeaux we hear an intimate side to the composer. Our selection includes R1 possibly one of Machaut’s first attempts at polyphony and R21 which is very late. In this late work a 3vv example of the form, Mark Dobell once again impresses with his solid technique and breath control. Of the four Virelais on this record V26 is a rare example of a two-part work taken here by the two tenor voices. In V19 and 27 Matthew Venner and Mark Dobell respectively are sweet-toned and elegant as always.
So they did it. The Orlando Consort’s project to record the complete polyphonic chansons and motets is complete with a large measure of monophonic works included to boot. All the previous instalments have been covered on MusicWeb and at the end of this review I have listed all the volumes with links to the relevant reviews. It is an epic achievement and both The Orlando Consort and Hyperion Records deserve hearty praise and thanks. I do wish the group had done the Messe de Nostre Dame for Hyperion. True they recorded this for Harmonia Mundi in 2007 where they were joined by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir but I find this performance unsatisfactory and would have loved them to have had another go at it either in a one voice per part version or by employing a little extra help from perhaps colleagues in The Sixteen or Tallis Scholars. Let us be grateful for what we have though; it is a wonderful legacy.
Philip Harrison
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Contents
Hareu, hareu! le feu / Helas! ou sera pris confors / Obediens usque ad mortem
Mors sui se je ne vous voy
Je ne cuit pas
Quant je ne voy
Diex, Biauté, Douceur, Nature
Biauté, qui toutes autres pere
Quant Vraie Amour / O Series summe rata / Super omnes speciosa
De petit po
Dous viaire gracieus
Douce dame jolie
Amours me fait desirer
Ce qui soustient moy
Amours, qui a le pooir / Faus Samblant / Vidi Dominum
N’en fait n’en dit
Ma chiere dame
Liement me deport
Martyrum gemma latria / Diligenter inquiramus / A Christo honoratus
Previous Instalments in this series
Songs from Le Voir Dit (review)
The dart of love (review)
A burning heart (review)
Sovereign Beauty (review)
Fortune’s Child (review)(review)
The gentle physician (review)
The single rose (review)
The lion of nobility (review) (review)
Remede de Fortune
The fount of grace
