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Track(s) taken from CDA68008

Pour ce que tous mes chans fais

composer
2vv; Ballade 12
author of text

The Orlando Consort
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
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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: 6 minutes 42 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)
In this two-voice ballade, the poetic speaker laments that he writes many fewer songs than he used to because he is lovesick, and no one has ever been made to feel such pain as he has. Therefore, people should not blame him if he sings less than he used to. However, the text and music of the refrain of this melancholy pronouncement, ‘Se je chant mains que ne sueil’ (‘If I sing less than I used to’), is borrowed from the opening of a chace—a three-voice canonic composition that often features texts about hunting—probably written by the somewhat older Denis Le Grant (d1352). In this chace, Se je chant mains que ne suelh, the text’s speaker explains that he is singing less than he used to because he likes to go hunting with his falcon. So the quotation of the chace makes ironic the melancholy that is expressed in the ballade, and a knowing audience would recognize the quoted song and connect the lack of productivity to a love of hunting rather than to a broken heart.

from notes by Anne Stone © 2015

Machaut s’intéressait profondément à la musique de son passé récent. Il s’inspira souvent, pour sa poésie, et il lui arriva même de citer de la musique. L’une de ses utilisations les plus saisissantes de telles citations musicalo-textuelles se trouve certainement dans Pour ce que tous mes chans fais (ballade 12), ballade à deux voix où le poète-narrateur se lamente d’écrire bien moins de chansons qu’avant: il se languit d’amour et nul n’a encore jamais éprouvé une douleur pareille à la sienne. Aussi les gens ne devraient-ils pas le blâmer de moins écrire. Toutefois, le texte et la musique du refrain de cette déclaration mélancolique, «Se je chant mains que ne sueil» sont empruntés à l’ouverture d’une chace—une composition canonique à trois voix avec des textes traitant souvent de la chasse—, probablement composée par Denis Le Grant (mort en 1352), un peu plus âgé que Machaut. Dans cette chace, Se je chant mains que ne suelh, le narrateur explique que, s’il chante moins qu’avant, c’est parce qu’il aime aller chasser avec son faucon. La citation de la chace teinte donc d’ironie la mélancolie exprimée dans la ballade et les fins auditeurs, qui reconnaissaient cette chanson, associaient le manque de rendement à l’amour de la chasse plutôt qu’au cœur brisé.

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

In dieser zweistimmigen Ballade beklagt sich der Erzähler darüber, dass er nun viel weniger Lieder schreibt, weil er liebeskrank ist, und dass niemand jemals so viel Leid hat ertragen müssen wie er. Daher sollen die Leute es ihm nicht übel nehmen, wenn er weniger singt, als er es früher getan hat. Der Text und die Musik des Refrains dieses melancholischen Ausspruchs, „Se je chant mains que ne sueil“ („Wenn ich weniger singe als früher“) jedoch stammt ursprünglich aus dem Beginn einer Chace—eine dreistimmige kanonische Form, bei der häufig Texte über das Jagen verwendet werden—die wahrscheinlich von dem etwas älteren Denis Le Grant (†1352) komponiert worden war. In dieser hier ebenfalls vorliegenden Chace, Se je chant mains que ne suelh, erklärt der Erzähler, dass er nun weniger singt als zuvor, weil er jetzt mit seinem Falken jagen geht. Das Zitat dieser Chace lässt die Melancholie der Ballade also mit einer Prise Ironie erscheinen, und man kann wohl davon ausgehen, dass das damalige Publikum die Anspielung verstand und die ausbleibende Produktivität eher der Jagdliebe als einem gebrochenen Herzen zuschrieb.

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

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