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Reviewer:
Anthony Pryer
This is the third disc
that the Orlando Consort have devoted to the music of the 14th-century
pot-composer Guillaume de Machaut. Their previous two CDs, Songs from Le Voir
Dit (2013) and The Dart of Love (2015), established for these
performers an approach that is attractive, suave and measured.
We do not expect these pieces to
be overtly expressive in the manner of later music, but it is good to see that
Se mesdisans en acort, a defiant solo song against evil gossip, attracts
an appropriately spirited performance from the tenor Angus Smith.
Elsewhere (e.g. Plus dure), the rather ‘English’ ooey-ness of the vowels seems
anodyne, and I began to miss the slightly rough, nasal French enunciation found
on recordings of 14th century music by, for example, the Clemencic Consort. Some
of the pieces (pas de tor) do not have texts in the lower parts, and so are sung
to vowel sounds; this works reasonably well so long as the top ‘melody’ is not
overwhelmed. These recordings employ the latest edition of Machaut’s works being
prepared by Yolande Plumley and Barton Palmer, which makes a considerable
difference to pieces such as the motet Aucune gente which the performers
have further transformed by moments of subtle embellishment.
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