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Track(s) taken from CDA68008

Se vous n'estes pour mon guerredon nee

composer
3vv; Rondeau 7
author of text

The Orlando Consort
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: January 2013
Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Loughton, Essex, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by David Hinitt
Release date: February 2015
Total duration: 3 minutes 54 seconds

Cover artwork: May: courtly figures on horseback (Très riches heures du Duc de Berry). Pol de Limbourg (dc1416)
Musée Condé, Chantilly, France / Giraudon / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘The programme is nicely varied in mood and scoring, ranging from four-voice ballades and motets to a single-voice virelai, and every combination in between … a thoughtful essay by Anne Stone makes audible sense of the many connections between the pieces on this valuable, impressive recording’ (Gramophone)

‘The performers seem most at home in the motets with secular words … fluently and sweetly performed’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More
RECORDING
PERFORMANCE

‘The Orlando Consort … celebrate the fourteenth-century French composer-poet Guillaume de Machaut with a selection of his numerous motets and songs … on the theme of courtly love and its diversions … Machaut, in the skilled hands of these musicians, turns … brutalities into music of ethereal purity, pulsating with poised, almost jaunty rhythms. Music for quiet concentration’ (The Guardian)» More

‘The artistic merits of The Orlando Consort are legendary, and these four male singers deliver performances of great beauty and expressiveness … full of elegant fluency, verve, and nuanced inflection’ (American Record Guide)

‘The second anthology in The Orlando Consort’s Machaut marathon…[is] characterised by supreme text—sensitivity and beauty of tone. One marvels at their trademark exquisite balance and their ability to reveal even the most complex of Machaut’s structures with enviable agreement and ensemble’ (Early Music Today)

‘The Orlando Consort perform these works with matchless purity of tone and clarity of diction’ (Limelight, Australia)» More

‘The Orlando Consort … do their best to make the music as accessible to the modern listener as it would have been to Machaut’s contemporaries without compromising on authenticity … lovers of Machaut’s music are becoming more fortunate all the time’ (MusicWeb International)» More

‘[This recording] offers a greater mix of pieces which amply demonstrate just why Machaut occupies such a crucial position in medieval music … the listener is transported into a richly rewarding and endlessly fascinating soundworld in which poetry and music are entwined as they can only be when they flow from the same pen … deeply satisfying while still whetting one's appetite for more’ (The Europadisc Review)» More

«La séduction so british des Orlando aura ses partisans» (Diapason, France)» More

'Limpide e calde sono le voci dell’Orlando Consort, a loro agio nella frequentazione del repertorio tre-quattrocentesco, al quale hanno dedicato numerose e importanti incisioni. Esemplare risulta l’equilibrio sonoro, frutto di un approfondito lavoro interpretativo, che I quattro solisti offrono interagendo con preziosi melismi e un approccio vocale consono a questo repertorio' (Musica, Italy)
A few of Machaut’s songs were among fourteenth-century bestsellers, travelling after his his death to manuscripts copied in Italy and the Netherlands. It is not always obvious why a given song would have been especially well-circulating; for example, one of the most popular was the little three-voice rondeau Se vous n’estes pour mon guerredon nee (Rondeau 7) which is found in seven music manuscripts and three poetry sources outside of the Machaut complete works collections, including in several northern Italian anthologies. Not only was it in wide circulation, but it even accrued two extra contratenor voices, one of which was composed by the early fifteenth-century Italian Matteo da Perugia. It is anybody’s guess why an Italian composer would be so interested in a French song half a century old that he would compose a new voice for it, but clearly this song, and perhaps also Machaut’s name, had staying power. A further testament to this song’s popularity is the quotation of part of its text and music in an anonymous ballade, S’espoir n’estoit, found in early fifteenth-century manuscripts from northern Italy and the Netherlands.

from notes by Anne Stone © 2015

Plusieurs chansons révèlent l’influence que Machaut exerça après sa mort, lui dont certains chants furent des «succès» du XIVe siècle, voyageant posthumement dans des manuscrits copiés en Italie et aux Pays-Bas. Il n’est pas toujours évident de subodorer pourquoi telle ou telle chanson se propagea particulièrement bien: l’une des plus populaires fut ainsi le petit rondeau à trois voix Se vous n’estes pour mon guerredon nee (rondeau 7), présent dans sept manuscrits musicaux et trois sources poétiques, en plus des recueils d’œuvres complètes de Machaut et de plusieurs anthologies d’Italie du Nord. Non contente de connaître une large diffusion, elle fut aussi dotée de deux voix de contratenor supplémentaires, dont une fut le fait, au début du XVe siècle, de Matteo da Perugia. Dieu seul sait pourquoi un compositeur italien s’intéressa à une chanson française vieille de cinquante ans au point de lui écrire une nouvelle voix mais, à l’évidence, cette œuvre, voire le nom même de Machaut, demeurait vivace. Autre témoignage de popularité: son texte et sa musique sont partiellement cités dans S’espoir n’estoit, une ballade anonyme apparaissant dans des manuscrits du début du XVe siècle, en Italie du Nord et aux Pays-Bas.

extrait des notes rédigées par Anne Stone © 2015
Français: Hypérion

Mehrere Lieder dieses Albums zeigen auch Machauts Einfluss nach seinem Tod auf. Einige seiner Lieder gehörten zu den Bestsellern des 14. Jahrhunderts, die nach seinem Tod nach Italien und in die Niederlande gelangten und dort kopiert wurden. Es ist nicht immer leicht nachzuvollziehen, weshalb bestimmte Lieder besonders erfolgreich zirkulierten; eines der populärsten war beispielsweise das kleine dreistimmige Rondeau Se vous n’estes pour mon guerredon nee (Rondeau 7), welches sich, abgesehen von den diversen Gesamtausgaben Machauts, in sieben Notenmanuskripten, darunter mehrere norditalienische Anthologien, und drei poetischen Quellen findet. Nicht nur war es weit verbreitet, sondern es hatte sogar noch zwei weitere Contratenor-Stimmen hinzugewonnen, von denen eine von dem italienischen Komponisten Matteo da Perugia, der zu Beginn des 15. Jahrhunderts wirkte, geschrieben worden war. Es lässt sich nicht nachvollziehen, weshalb ein italienischer Komponist derartiges Interesse an einem französischen Lied zeigte, das bereits ein halbes Jahrhundert alt war, dass er eine neue Stimme dafür komponierte, doch offenbar besaß dieses Lied—und möglicherweise auch der Name Machauts—Stehvermögen. Ein weiterer Beweis für die Popularität dieses Lieds ist das Zitat eines Teils seines Texts und seiner Musik in der Ballade S’espoir n’estoit eines anonymen Komponisten, die sich in norditalienischen und niederländischen Manuskripten des frühen 15. Jahrhunderts findet.

aus dem Begleittext von Anne Stone © 2015
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

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