Machaut: The Lion of nobility
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GUILLAUME de MACHAUT
Machaut: The Lion of nobility
The Orlando Consort
[ Hyperion / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 8 January 2021
The titular 'lion of nobility' was (probably) King John II of France, making the most expansive work on this album a lament for a historical event: the French defeat at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. Elsewhere, Machaut's protagonist continues to scrutinize the joys and sorrows of courtly love in obsessive detail.
GRAMOPHONE Award Nomination 2021 - Early Music
"The real headline performance on this album is the lai En demantant et lamentant...it is here performed TTB, with voices taking the texted part in turn as the others vocalise. The result is rich, mesmeric and deeply moving...The famous rondeau Ma fin est mon commencement ('My end is my beginning') is especially pleasing in this thoughtful, clear performance. The Orlando Consort bear Machaut's virtuoso writing lightly and keep the text clearly in the foreground." Gramophone Editor's Choice January 2021
"Their approach is rather different from the refined blend of such pioneering groups as Gothic Voices; exploiting, instead, the contrasts in timbre and character between the four voices and varying in manner from rough to smooth depending upon the texts and genres of different pieces." BBC Music
Tracks:
S'il estoit nuls / S'Amours tous / Et gaudebit cor vestrum
On ne porroit penser
Dame, se vous m'estes lonteinne
Moult sui de bonne heure nee
Ne pensez pas, dame, que je recroie
En demantant et lamentant
Mes esperis se combat
J'aim sans penser laidure
Ma fin est mon commencement
C'est force, faire le vueil
Je puis trop bien ma dame comparer
Tant doucement m'ont attrait / Eins que ma dame / Ruina
