# Recordings of Medieval music: What the hell is going on?



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Over the years, I've amassed a small collection of Medieval music records, because I've always been interested in that era. But I could never find the time to listen to any of those properly, until now. And now that I actually started listening and comparing different versions, I'm completely baffled by what I hear. The differences between performances are sometimes quite staggering. For example, here's a piece by Binchois, performed by Graindelavoix, which I understand is a famous and highly regarded group:






And here's the same piece performed by Ensemble Gilles Binchois, which I am given to understand is also a famous and highly regarded group:






This isn't the most extreme example I found, but Youtube doesn't have the ones I have in mind. But anyway, very frequently one version of a piece (not necessarily by Binchois, of course!) will have a single voice accompanied by a fiddle and some drums, and the other version will have, say, three voices with no instruments. If it is a 1-voice piece, where do they get the other two parts? If it is a 3-voice piece, why is it permissible to use instruments instead of voices? You wouldn't do that in Renaissance vocal polyphony, would you?

Also, how do you decide on the instruments? Here's a particularly disturbing example from Ciconia: one version by the Huelgas Ensemble...






And here's another version:






Quite a difference in _everything_! How is that possible? I have another version of this piece, which uses a lute like the Huelgas Ensemble, but the lutenist is clearly playing quite a few extra notes. I thought basso continuo was a 17th century practice?

So the questions I have are the following:
a. How much information is actually inside those Medieval scores? Are instruments ever specified?
b. How much depends on whether a record is from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, or the 2000s? is it possible that newer groups have more information on Medieval practice, and should be preferred to the older groups?
and
c. How am I supposed to take in all those interpretations? I know it's a bit pointless, perhaps, but I do like to know a little bit more aobut what I'm listening to. When Bach is played on a harpsichord, it feels right to me to simply know that the instrument - whichever it is - is much closer to what Bach would've heard in his time, than a piano. When listening to a beautiful version of some Renaissance music with female sopranos, I enjoy it, but I do know that the composer probably used male sopranos and/or castrati, and again, it feels right to know that, no matter how good or bad the performance I'm listening to is. But when I'm listening to a Binchois piece performed by three voices, I have absolutely no idea what I'm listening to. Is it what the man actually wrote? Did he write a single line, which he expected the performers to add two more lines to? Did the performers decide on a three-part vocal interpretation because of their own research, or did they follow some trend? Was that trend later shown to be true or false in any way?

It's all extremely frustrating, and sometimes when I'm enjoying a piece, I find it disturbing to realize that I have no way of knowing if my enjoyment is due to the performers adapting the music for modern ears somewhat, and very far from what the composer intended. I'd appreciate any information on Medieval performance practie as understood today, and also recommendations of records that are based on solid research (I was told that Ensemble Organum are one such group, but I only have their recordings of sacred chants, mostly monophonic, not quite what I'm talking about in this post).


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Myriadi said:


> It's all extremely frustrating, and sometimes when I'm enjoying a piece, I find it disturbing to realize that I have no way of knowing if my enjoyment is due to the performers adapting the music for modern ears somewhat, and very far from what the composer intended.


I suspect this is going to remain a problem for you. Medieval composers didn't always indicate what instruments were to be used (and this problem persisted after Medieval times). Notation isn't necessarily complete, there have been changes in tuning and pitch. Even word pronunciations are ambiguous.

We just don't know what exactly the composer intended, or even if he intended something specific (vs. allowing performers some discretion).


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

I don't know much about Medieval music, more about Renaissance music, but one thing I've learned is that what the performers did and what the composer or a contemporary theorist may have wished are two different things.

Hermann Finck (mid-16th century composer and theorist) complained that vocal groups often used vibrato and didn't sing in balance. Do you want to hear how vocal groups often preferred to sing or how a theorist wanted the music to be sung?

I kind of doubt there was any "performance practice" back then. Different performers probably did different things, while composers were stuck with the musicians they had and the venues they had composed for and what their patrons wanted to hear.

Dufay, for example, often composed his works for a single specific, public performance. It being a public performance, brass instruments were probably used in addition to more singers than just one per part. But who knows what he would have preferred?

I suspect that back then, people played and sang the music using what they happened to have, and I suspect the composer didn't bother to specify his wishes with regards to performance because he knew his music would either get just one performance or be used in a variety of contexts by different groups in different ways.

(That said, there were a few things like the treatment of musica ficta, perhaps tempo, certainly the number of voices in some cases, that most likely involved some sort of fixed expectations by the composer if not a common practice by performers. I haven't perceived any clear-cut trends though with regards to newer groups being more authentic.)

No doubt someone will have more to say, and I'll be interested in hearing it.

Oh, forgot: I've never heard of performers adding parts to the texture except in very special cases of reconstructing a partially lost piece.


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

GreenMamba said:


> I suspect this is going to remain a problem for you. Medieval composers didn't always indicate what instruments were to be used (and this problem persisted after Medieval times). Notation isn't necessarily complete, there have been changes in tuning and pitch. Even word pronunciations are ambiguous.
> 
> We just don't know what exactly the composer intended, or even if he intended something specific (vs. allowing performers some discretion).


So what you're saying is, the records we have today are all improvisations, only based on a bit more material than melody and/or a chord progression? That would make for something like jazz listening - appreciating how a familiar tune was treated by these particular performers.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Myriadi said:


> So what you're saying is, the records we have today are all improvisations, only based on a bit more material than melody and/or a chord progression? That would make for something like jazz listening - appreciating how a familiar tune was treated by these particular performers.


There are some scores here:

http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Gilles_Binchois

Why not see for yourself? (I doubt they're just "improvisations")


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

@Chordalrock: I have the same doubts (about the existence of a particular common performance practice) and suspicions (about composers' situations), but I keep wondering if there's more to all this. Perhaps a performer with some experience with Medieval music will be able to shed light on this, and turn our suspicions into knowledge.

Also, excellent point with Finck - hadn't heard about this before, and consequently, I've never thought of this. (Of course, given free choice, I would want two records, one with Finck directing a choir of like-minded individuals, and another with one of those pesky vocal groups )


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Chordalrock said:


> There are some scores here:
> 
> http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Gilles_Binchois
> 
> Why not see for yourself? (I doubt they're just "improvisations")


Ah, but those aren't academic editions, are they? Certainly they're transcribed from somewhere, perhaps even from the original manuscripts, but would those manuscripts contain everything exactly as written in those CPDL scores? I'd love to check some of the modern editions of various Medieval authors, but my circumstances are such that it isn't possible for me, unless I pirate something off the Internet.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Re Graindelavoix's Binchois, Björn Schmelzer is absolutely clear that he was trying to produce an authentic performance



> our work with the songs of Binchois started from the preoccupation of singing out one's sadness and raising it into a kind of sublime expression which can be understood and felt by everybody. We searched also for a new sound and a new way of dealing with instrumental involvement and ornamentation, but one that involved finding a true (and therefore 'authentic') sound in which words, ornaments, phrasing and lines speak again and allow one to feel this 'douloureuse joye'."


Clearly though he's not primarily interested in trying to find out what sounds people actually made when they played the music in medieval times.

I was amazed last week to find in one of their Villard de Honnecourt CDs someone started singing in the style of 18th century opera!


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

First, I'm not really an expert on this, and I can't speak to the specific pieces you linked to above.

You should be able to just scroll through some pages with this link to give you an example of some of the challenges. E.g., he mentions how Machaut has songs with 2-3 voices, but only words indicated for one of them. What does that mean?

http://tinyurl.com/znk4da5

I don't think it's an issue of it all being improvisation, but even in Bach's day, performers were expected to add their own ornamentations.


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

GreenMamba said:


> First, I'm not really an expert on this, and I can't speak to the specific pieces you linked to above.
> 
> You should be able to just scroll through some pages with this link to give you an example of some of the challenges. E.g., he mentions how Machaut has songs with 2-3 voices, but only words indicated for one of them. What does that mean?
> 
> ...


Wow, that chapter is an eye-opener. I never thought things were quite as incompletely known as they are, according to this author.


----------



## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Myriadi said:


> Wow, that chapter is an eye-opener. I never thought things were quite as incompletely known as they are, according to this author.


That's just a Very Short Introduction series book. There are more detailed discussions of this topic (but you'd probably have to buy those books ).


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

So they do add parts (even polyphony), but only some songs need this. Which is very confusing for a casual listener...


----------



## Guest (Apr 16, 2016)

I strongly suspect that musicians back then had a much harder time trying to play that stuff than musicians today. They had no recordings to listen to and may have never heard the piece before they started playing it. They may not have, in all likelihood, even had the sheet music but were playing by ear since paper back then was vellum, parchment and what not and neither cheap nor plentiful but then neither was literacy and I suspect most musicians back then were not well trained but could play well enough to make a buck. Imagine trying to learn "I Want to Hold Your Hand" having never heard the Beatles do it and there's 50 bands running around playing it each according to their tastes and capabilities and you're not likely to ever see the sheet music and probably couldn't read it if you did. Imagine how many diverse versions there are going to be. It's like asking whether Willie Mae Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" is the correct one or Elvis's version.


----------



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

This is one of the most amazing Medieval pieces I've heard. It sounds like almost a unique type of writing. I've never heard anything remotely like it. I wonder what the oldest score of it looks like.

The video lists it as: vMotet 328 - Codex Montpellier H196

Here is a link to them, it's maybe in there:

http://manuscrits.biu-montpellier.fr/vignettem.php?GENRE[]=MP&ETG=OR&ETT=OR&ETM=OR&BASE=manuf

Here is a transcription of something with the same name:

http://maucamedus.net/PDF/amor-potest.pdf


----------



## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

^The Montpellier Codex is a goldmine.

We'll never know the answers but I would guess - as many writers have said - that the recently favored crystal clear, unaccompanied, perfectly balanced ensemble performance is _not_ what you would have heard in the Middle Ages. It just sounds and feels much too modern.

That doesn't mean it can't be good!


----------



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

There is a large scholarly work on it:

The Montpellier Codex: Texts and Translations
edited by Hans Tischler

https://books.google.com/books?id=e...AEIaTAP#v=onepage&q=Montpellier Codex&f=false

and an article:

Why a New Edition of the Montpellier Codex?
Hans Tischler
Acta Musicologica
Vol. 46, Fasc. 1 (Jan. - Jun., 1974), pp. 58-75

http://www.jstor.org/stable/932478?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Much more comes up as far as scholarly work on it. I don't think there is a complete recording of the entire work.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Re Graindelavoix's Binchois, Björn Schmelzer is absolutely clear that he was* trying to produce an authentic performance*
> 
> *Clearly though he's not primarily interested in trying to find out what sounds people actually made when they played the music in medieval times.*


Maybe it is just me, but I do not understand Schmelzer's use of the word "authentic".


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Myriadi said:


> So the questions I have are the following:
> a. How much information is actually inside those Medieval scores? Are instruments ever specified?
> b. How much depends on whether a record is from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, or the 2000s? is it possible that newer groups have more information on Medieval practice, and should be preferred to the older groups?
> and
> ...


I can answer some of your questions:

a. For chanson in the medieval and Renaissance eras instruments are not specified. (Neither is tempo!) The most common practice for 3 voice chanson like the Binchois is to have one line, the superius, with text written beneath it, and two other parts without text. It is assumed that the most common performance practice for these chanson was one vocalist with instruments on the other parts. The instruments would be whatever was handy, viols, wind instruments or lutes and harps in any combination. Given this freedom of instrumentation, many assume that voices could be substituted for the instrumental parts if only singers were present. Nearly all of Binchois' chanson were in 3 voices with text under only the superius. The addition of drums in some recordings is purely speculative and is not indicated in any notation. Musicologists sometimes speculate from artworks depicting contemporary musical instruments at the relevant courts or in the environs thereabouts.

b. Not sure about this, but the basics, as above, have been perfectly well known for close to a century. I'm sure continuing research has led to more specific knowledge of some individual works and performance practices in particular courts or cities.

c. This is pretty much answered in "a" above. However, there are certainly cases where composers made more specific intentions about performance clear. For example, Guillaume Dufay wrote a wonderful 3 part Ballade, "Resvellies vous," for the occasion of the marriage of Carlo Malatesta, in which text is only placed beneath the superius, with the exception of one short passage. At the words "Charle gentil," which refer to the groom Carlo, text is placed below all parts and the individual notes all have fermatas above them. It seems the instrumentalists were supposed to cease playing and to sing for just those words. In addition, in the first section the texted superius begins with a long instrumental passage.

I don't know enough to make recommendations about what might be more authentic performances. This could be difficult in any case because performance practice was apparently very loose.


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> I can answer some of your questions:


Thank you! This was very illuminating.


----------



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Victor Redseal said:


> I strongly suspect that musicians back then had a much harder time trying to play that stuff than musicians today. They had no recordings to listen to and may have never heard the piece before they started playing it.


But maybe they didn't have a 'harder time' because there was no precise expectation of what it should sound like - putting the notes on paper was more of an 'aide-memoire' than a distinct instruction



Victor Redseal said:


> They may not have, in all likelihood, even had the sheet music but were playing by ear


... and by memory .... and interpretation .... and by addition of own embellishments ... etc .... yes, the concept of 'Ur-text' (the defining intention of the composer) probably had no connection to the reality of performance practice



Victor Redseal said:


> I suspect most musicians back then were not well trained but could play well enough to make a buck.


... maybe this is tongue-in-cheek or said in jest, but if not .... it shows a remarkable lack of understanding of the oral (aural) tradition in handing down music



Victor Redseal said:


> Imagine trying to learn "I Want to Hold Your Hand" having never heard the Beatles do it and there's 50 bands running around playing it each according to their tastes and capabilities and you're not likely to ever see the sheet music and probably couldn't read it if you did. Imagine how many diverse versions there are going to be. It's like asking whether Willie Mae Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" is the correct one or Elvis's version.


Precisely - there might not be a 'correct' version - and not just in 'Early Music' forms


----------



## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Myriadi said:


> So the questions I have are the following:
> a. How much information is actually inside those Medieval scores? Are instruments ever specified?
> b. How much depends on whether a record is from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, or the 2000s? is it possible that newer groups have more information on Medieval practice, and should be preferred to the older groups?
> and
> c. How am I supposed to take in all those interpretations? I know it's a bit pointless, perhaps, but I do like to know a little bit more aobut what I'm listening to. When Bach is played on a harpsichord, it feels right to me to simply know that the instrument - whichever it is - is much closer to what Bach would've heard in his time, than a piano. When listening to a beautiful version of some Renaissance music with female sopranos, I enjoy it, but I do know that the composer probably used male sopranos and/or castrati, and again, it feels right to know that, no matter how good or bad the performance I'm listening to is. But when I'm listening to a Binchois piece performed by three voices, I have absolutely no idea what I'm listening to. Is it what the man actually wrote? Did he write a single line, which he expected the performers to add two more lines to? Did the performers decide on a three-part vocal interpretation because of their own research, or did they follow some trend? Was that trend later shown to be true or false in any way?


To add to the previous answers
a. the lack of specificity of pitch, instrument to be used, combination of instruments etc persisted well into the C18th - many of Bach's scores are ambiguous about such matters too. Often in Bach's works, there is a name of an instrument, but it is a generic name that doesn't indicate the precise instrument in question (eg the pitch may be missing) - so there are many types of 'recorder' but which one is meant isn't clear - and maybe was never meant to be clear - because performance might depend on who was available at that moment and which instrument they had in their possession.

b. there was an explosion of 'HIP' recordings in the 1980s onwards - debates about pitch, speed, balance, intonation etc etc evolve but I doubt that a definitive 'correct answer' has been found because it is clear that precise information about many aspects of performance practice is lacking. However, with a bit f experience, one can often tell from listening to a recording things about the time the recording was made, where it was made, what the tradition of performance was etc etc. I wouldn't suggest that there are performances that you 'should' prefer - but the recordings of David Munroe and Niklaus Harnoncourt (for example) are very distinctive - and much will depend on your taste (just the same as violin paying from 80 years ago sounds very different from that of today)

c. It may depend on the balance between 'music' and 'history' when you listen - if you want 'history' then you are likely to get disappointed because so much is interpretation and extrapolation of pretty limited information. If you want 'music' then you will find loads of enjoyment in exploring a diverse and varied treasury of works - and in exploring the diverse and varied ways of interpreting them

Enjoy!


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

@Headphone Hermit: thank you. I'm very happy about how this thread turned out so far - many informative, illuminating answers. I hope it will be helpful to others who start their journey into Medieval music.



Headphone Hermit said:


> To add to the previous answers
> a. the lack of specificity of pitch, instrument to be used, combination of instruments etc persisted well into the C18th - many of Bach's scores are ambiguous about such matters too. Often in Bach's works, there is a name of an instrument, but it is a generic name that doesn't indicate the precise instrument in question (eg the pitch may be missing) - so there are many types of 'recorder' but which one is meant isn't clear - and maybe was never meant to be clear - because performance might depend on who was available at that moment and which instrument they had in their possession.


That's interesting - I'm a big fan of 17th century keyboard repertoire, but I seem to have always taken this aspect for granted. The way a keyboard work may be for harpsichord, clavichord, virginal, claviorganum, etc. Now thanks to you I realize this is actually part of a huge trend that went on for several centuries.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

GreenMamba said:


> I suspect this is going to remain a problem for you. Medieval composers didn't always indicate what instruments were to be used (and this problem persisted after Medieval times). Notation isn't necessarily complete, there have been changes in tuning and pitch. Even word pronunciations are ambiguous.
> 
> We just don't know what exactly the composer intended, or even if he intended something specific (vs. allowing performers some discretion).


Pronunciation can be super ambiguous with Latin in particular. There are also huge differences in how much they emphasize the consonants. Sometimes you can barely tell they're using consonants, and they even deviate from each other with what they consider to be a silent consonant. Not to mention that we still know literally nothing about how people pronounced Koine Greek (i.e. biblical Greek), and there are several creeds that were in liturgical use and kept certain sections in Greek.

Check out how wildly different these two are:

Machaut by Diabulus In Musica
Machaut by Ensemble Organum

Also notable is the variance in how freely each group interprets the melodies during monophonic chants.



regenmusic said:


> There is a large scholarly work on it:
> 
> The Montpellier Codex: Texts and Translations
> edited by Hans Tischler
> ...


Just had to say I loved this post.


----------



## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

This article may be of interest to denizens of this thread:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/listen-songs-lost-for-1000-years-are-brought-back-to-life/


----------



## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

In his short essay, _The English a cappella heresy_, Christopher Page concludes that most of medieval secular music was performed by voices only.

https://books.google.com/books?id=_...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

His claim is based on the evidence from contemporary literary and the recent study of medieval musical instruments, which were apparently not sufficient to perform the tenor/contratenor lines that used to be played by instruments. During the 50s and 60s, musicians played medieval music with instruments, but they used Renaissance instruments which can achieve lower pitches with satisfactory tones. Around the late 70s new groups such as the Hilliard Ensemble started performing the music with voices only.

Personally, I prefer medieval songs performed without instruments, but I think it's good that we can hear a variety of performances, with and without instruments.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

tortkis said:


> In his short essay, _The English a cappella heresy_, Christopher Page concludes that most of medieval secular music was performed by voices only.
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=_...ce=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
> 
> ...


Christopher Page performs secular medieval music with instruments, with Gothic Voices. There may be iconographic evidence demonstrating that singers and instrumentalists performed together, I've never explored it, but here's something

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/lorenzo-costa-a-concert

Obviously how instruments were used (accompaniment, postlude, prelude, interlude), and which instruments were used, is another matter.

What do you think of this image - is the woman with the bowed instrument singing?

http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.46309.html


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

It is probably true, that no other instruments than the organ were used for the accompainment of sacred music.

It is also true, that renaissance musical instruments have influenced our evaluation of medieval music too much. 
But to claim that no instruments at all were used for the accompaniment of secular songs may be going too far. 
There is the iconic documentation, even if some of this is from the renaissance (nor have I explored that in detail). But also the instrumental character of at least parts of some otherwise vocal parts tells its own story. This means that some vocal parts seem to have instrumental interludes - often the upper part (which is supplied with words), and this occurs rather often in the chansons by DuFay, for instance. Most convincing it may be to think, that singers and musicians used, what was at hand at in a given situation, and that we may do likewise. So "what to do" may entirely be a discussion about the emperor's beard. 

The phenomenon that instruments of a later age exert a too great influence upon our view of music is not unknown even to day, think of Bach on piano, f.i.


----------



## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Christopher Page performs secular medieval music with instruments, with Gothic Voices. There may be iconographic evidence demonstrating that singers and instrumentalists performed together, I've never explored it, but here's something
> 
> http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/lorenzo-costa-a-concert


Isn't this from the Renaissance? Page's essay is about medieval music.



> Obviously how instruments were used (accompaniment, postlude, prelude, interlude), and which instruments were used, is another matter.
> 
> What do you think of this image - is the woman with the bowed instrument singing?
> 
> http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.46309.html


I am not sure. There are also other people who seem either opening their mouths with admiration or singing. Wasn't the music for marriage usually instrumental, or with vocal?

I think the question is whether the non-text parts in medieval music for multiple voices were originally composed for human voices or for instruments. To me voices only performance sounds more suitable for polyphony because of its uniformity of the timbre in all the parts. With instruments (on non-text parts and/or doubling voices), the music sounds too colorful or too gorgeous, but it may be just my preference. As Page wrote, there is no definitive evidence.


----------



## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

tortkis said:


> To me voices only performance sounds more suitable for polyphony because of its uniformity of the timbre in all the parts.


I'd think the exact opposite should be preferred, because the more different the timbres, the more you'll have polyphonic clarity and can actually hear the polyphony (as undoubtedly intended by the composer, regardless of what performers back then did). Fortunately, this is possible to some extent with purely vocal performance as well.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tortkis said:


> I think the question is whether the non-text parts in medieval music for multiple voices were originally composed for human voices or for instruments. To me voices only performance sounds more suitable for polyphony because of its uniformity of the timbre in all the parts. With instruments (on non-text parts and/or doubling voices), the music sounds too colorful or too gorgeous, but it may be just my preference. As Page wrote, there is no definitive evidence.


Equal voiced polyphony, especially the imitative variety, is well served by all vocal performance, but in most chanson of this era the voices are not equal and frequently the superius is more florid. Trying to apply the same text to the disparate voices of chanson by Machaut, for example, tends to result in a textual muddle, with different singers pronouncing the same syllable in a randomly asynchronus way. The Gothic Voices performances of Machaut chanson, while beautiful, are muddled in just this way. Isn't it far more likely that the texted voice, already distinct from the others rhythmically and in terms of activity, would be differentiated by timbre as well? While there might be no definitive evidence, the fact of placing the text under only one voice is strongly suggestive. And cases like Machaut's double ballade "Quant Theseus/Ne quier veoir strongly" support the one voice plus instruments model, since clearly only the two texted voices are meant to be sung and the others must be instrumental. The example of Dufay's "Resvellies vous," while slightly later, provides similar support. Because the lower parts only have text underlaid for one brief passage, it seems clear that these lines were otherwise performed by instruments.


----------



## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

Here are two versions of Machaut's _Phyton, le mervilleus serpent_, performed with and without instruments.

Early Music Consort of London / David Munrow (one voice and two crumhorns)





Ensemble Musica Nova / Lucien Kandel (a cappella)





To me, the a cappella version sounds more natural and unified, though the Munrow's is quite interesting - crisp and clear but sounds a bit disjointed, and crumhorn is a Renaissance instrument.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

In the Python song, in Lucian Kandel's performance the textures seem to obscure the words a little. Marc Marilion is clearer, he uses one singer and some instruments. I'm not keen on David Munrow here. 

But then, there's the performance by Orlando Consort released last year on their Dart of Love CD. Two (I think) voices, no instruments, and balanced in such a way that all the poem is clear I think.


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

I'd like to resurrect this thread, if I may. I've been browsing a lot of CDs on Amazon, checking vairous reviews, and came across some very curious texts and discussions. I was particularly intrigued to see a few reviews by someone who evidently has some serious knowledge of the repertoire - or at least can pretend really well! Here is what I'm talking about:

https://www.amazon.com/review/R2JHIFX05W6HIJ/ref=cm_cr_dp_title
https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R1VFM47LV91AT0?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl
These reviews pretty much state that 21st century scholarship (names are mentioned) has long established that late Medieval - early Renaissance chansons were to be sung a capella, or with a bare minimum of instruments, and also probably without the vielle. Which is at odds with just so many recordings.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R3SNBPEQMZZK68?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl
This is what seems to be a very well informed review which gives a detailed critique of Ensemble Organum's approach to Machaut, dismisses it completely as unhistorical, and seems to connect it with a Corsican tradition rather than with the Eastern influience on Medieval Europe.

I'd be interested to see if anybody can offer a comment or a retort. As a bonus, here's the same user's review dismissing Alla Francesca: https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/RDJHUDGTZF6K9?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl

I know Amazon reviews aren't a very trustworthy source of information, but these reviews are very well written, and some of the comments by reviewers I came to trust in the past (e.g. user Gio) are in complete agreement. It's all a little bit shocking.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Myriadi said:


> I'd like to resurrect this thread, if I may. I've been browsing a lot of CDs on Amazon, checking vairous reviews, and came across some very curious texts and discussions. I was particularly intrigued to see a few reviews by someone who evidently has some serious knowledge of the repertoire - or at least can pretend really well! Here is what I'm talking about:
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/review/R2JHIFX05W6HIJ/ref=cm_cr_dp_title
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R1VFM47LV91AT0?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl
> ...


I have enjoyed Maddy Evil's, particularly on Gothic Voices - Gio seems much less interesting to me, I'm afraid.

Re her comments on Peres's Machault, one thing to mention is that in his use of Corsican style singing, he may not really have been making any claims about history - I can't recall exactly, but is he really saying that this mass was sung like that in Machault's day? Maybe someone could check, but I seem to recall his justification consists mainly in the fact that it makes the music sound strange again.


----------



## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Re her comments on Peres's Machault, one thing to mention is that in his use of Corsican style singing, he may not really have been making any claims about history - I can't recall exactly, but is he really saying that this mass was sung like that in Machault's day? Maybe someone could check, but I seem to recall his justification consists mainly in the fact that it makes the music sound strange again.


I just skimmed through the booklet. He states that "ornamentation is essential" and that voices of different timbres were used to "underline the architectural function of each part". Corsica is not mentioned, neither is Eastern influence, everything is simply written to suggest that modern practices are not doing the work justice, while skilful ornamentation is a must, because the singer "should not be satisfied with merely reading a text and reproducing it". No mention of how he arrived at this conclusion, but then it's just a booklet.


----------

