Guillaume Dufay

[Mandryka]

Dufay's last dated mass was, I believe, Missa Ave Regina Coelorum. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is his greatest, or one of them, because of the wonderful performance by Cantica Symphonia. Cut Circle recently recorded it more vigorously and quickly, OVPP I think too, but I don't like what they do as much. Cantica Symphonia have something in common with Rebecca Stewart: the general assumption is that the voice starts off with a small sound, and that suits me very well. Cut Circle sing forth robustly.

I'm not sure how to put this, but I want to say that Cantica Symphonia make this mass sound more Renaissance than Medieval. In terms of lyricism, voicing, textures, colours, sensuality, warmth, beauty,  we're in a world which even resembles Josquin's. I would love to hear this music performed in a more archaic, spiky and dissonant way.

I'm going to try and get a better handle on Dufay's development. The only chronology I can find is on his page in Wikipedia.fr, and that leaves most of the motets and all the secular music undated. Anyone got any ideas about what were his last songs?

[Mandryka]

Two striking things about Jill Feldman in this recording are that her voice is very high (the grain of the voice makes me think of Birget Nilsson), and that her style is totally nonchalant. The voice has a certain squillo almost, which allows it to penetrate gently and firmly through the gossamer of instrumental music. The songs are all full of catchy tunes.

In terms of the poetry, she's quite natural, in the sense that you don't get the impression that she's digging deep into every vowel and consonant for meaning. But that's art hiding art - has there ever been a more "meaningful" recorded performance of the late chanson "Hélas mon deuil" for example?  I don't think so.  Comparing what they do their with Davies Bros, Monroe and Binkley  makes me think that this is a really exceptional CD.


The result is a recording with a certain hippy-trippy quality. I can imagine listening to it smoking a bong in a tent, with Brit Ekland at my side.

[San Antone]

Dufay's last dated mass was, I believe, Missa Ave Regina Coelorum. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is his greatest, or one of them, because of the wonderful performance by Cantica Symphonia. Cut Circle recently recorded it more vigorously and quickly, OVPP I think too, but I don't like what they do as much. Cantica Symphonia have something in common with Rebecca Stewart: the general assumption is that the voice starts off with a small sound, and that suits me very well. Cut Circle sing forth robustly.

I'm not sure how to put this, but I want to say that Cantica Symphonia make this mass sound more Renaissance than Medieval. In terms of lyricism, voicing, textures, colours, sensuality, warmth, beauty,  we're in a world which even resembles Josquin's. I would love to hear this music performed in a more archaic, spiky and dissonant way.

I'm going to try and get a better handle on Dufay's development. The only chronology I can find is on his page in Wikipedia.fr, and that leaves most of the motets and all the secular music undated. Anyone got any ideas about what were his last songs?

He composed songs throughout his career, mainly rondeaux.  The ballades are all early works but the few virelais and bergerettes are somewhat late, the chansons are also late.  You are correct in assuming that Missa Ave Regina is the last mass and some consider it a summing up of Dufay's approach to mass composition.

Dufay (1397-1474) would be early Renaissance.  The Medieval period (Middle ages) in music is usually considered occurring from 500-1400.  By the end of Machaut's life the music was changing, and in fact Machaut purposely used older forms such as the David Hocket as a reference to this phenomenon happening around him, similar to Bach being considered "old school".

[Mandryka]

He composed songs throughout his career, mainly rondeaux.  The ballades are all early works but the few virelais and bergerettes are somewhat late, the chansons are also late. 

Re the chronology, there's a book by one C E Hamm which is devoted to it, and it turns out that the Davies Bros. set of songs is arranged by Hamm's ideas about temporal order.

You are correct in assuming that Missa Ave Regina is the last mass and some consider it a summing up of Dufay's approach to mass composition.

Where did you get that idea from?

[San Antone]

You are correct in assuming that Missa Ave Regina is the last mass and some consider it a summing up of Dufay's approach to mass composition.

Where did you get that idea from?

Grove: because the mass incorporates the different stylistic methods that Dufay had used previously.

[Mandryka]

I've decided I like The Boston Church's recording of Missa Ancille Domine. It's not too celebratory, which suits me. You don't feel as though the music is being pushed forward energetically, or that the pulse underlined too fiercely. The Boston Church give me time to savour the roses, or in some moods, to reflect on the mass and its music.

It's well produced - not too closely miked. And the pitch is quite high: I prefer higher voices.

Another recording of the mass I quite enjoy is with Schola Cantorum Stuttgart, but that's with a large choir and hence it feels a bit dated, rightly or wrongly. Nevertheless it is rapt.

The rest? Well I'm sure many people will enjoy Cut Circle most, I can see they're very clear with the voice leading, but they're just not what I'm looking for. They are too dynamic for me, and I prefer the Boston pitch. I probably should listen to Vellard again.

Clemencic is quite simply dreadful, with René's own bombastic instrumental music often obscuring Dufay's music.

[San Antone]

I've decided I like The Boston Church's recording of Missa Ancille Domine. It's not too celebratory, which suits me. You don't feel as though the music is being pushed forward energetically, or that the pulse underlined too fiercely. The Boston Church give me time to savour the roses, or in some moods, to reflect on the mass and its music.

It's well produced - not too closely miked. And the pitch is quite high: I prefer higher voices.

Another recording of the mass I quite enjoy is with Schola Cantorum Stuttgart, but that's with a large choir and hence it feels a bit dated, rightly or wrongly. Nevertheless it is rapt.

The rest? Well I'm sure many people will enjoy Cut Circle most, I can see they're very clear with the voice leading, but they're just not what I'm looking for. They are too dynamic for me, and I prefer the Boston pitch. I probably should listen to Vellard again.

Clemencic is quite simply dreadful, with René's own bombastic instrumental music often obscuring Dufay's music.

I listened to the first couple of movements of the Boston recording and had the opposite reaction to you, i.e. I do not prefer the highly pitched voices.  I am frankly tired of hearing female voices in this music and just wish people would treat this issue with the same kind of integrity they did with the issue of adding instruments under the voices - most performers simply discontinued the practice.

My guess, although I haven't heard it yet, is that as in most of this repertoire Ensemble Gilles Binchois/Dominique Vellard is a very good choice, albeit prohibitively expensive from US sources.  Other self-recommending choices, alas, just as hard to find, would include The Sound and the Fury and The Clerks' Group.

[Mandryka]

I have Ockeghem's M. Ancilla Domine by both Sound and Fury and Clerks Group - if you want them just say.  I'll try to listen to  Vellard soon, my guess is you'll enjoy Cut Circle.

Vellard is dependably something. Dependably beautiful and polished. Which may well be the right way to be.

(I just note that I prefer Ockeghem's mass to Dufay's, but that may be a reflection on performances rather than anything else.)

[San Antone]

I have Ockeghem's M. Ancilla Domine by both Sound and Fury and Clerks Group - if you want them just say.  I'll try to listen to  Vellard soon, my guess is you'll enjoy Cut Circle.

Vellard is dependably something. Dependably beautiful and polished. Which may well be the right way to be.

(I just note that I prefer Ockeghem's mass to Dufay's, but that may be a reflection on performances rather than anything else.)

Is it Ockeghem by SatF and TCG instead of Dufay?  Vellard usually uses only male voices and also often includes plainchant - which is why his recordings receive high marks from me.

It is odd that you seem to accuse Vellard of being "beautiful" and yet prefer women sopranos - which is typically "beautiful", I guess, to some ears.  I find it entirely wrong.  I am so glad Anonymous 4 finally disbanded (after what, 100 recordings?)  I considered them an atrocity. 

This music is not supposed to sound pleasant, beautiful, or "cute" like soft bunnies.  Faith is hard, so the music that coveys the experience of faith should also have an edge, appear resolute and strong; disciplined, masculine - not soft focused, warm and fuzzy like I hear with female voices.  It is wrong to use large choirs and it is simply wrong to use women.

To each his own, I suppose, but there is the issue of what is more authentic for the period.

[torut]

Is it Ockeghem by SatF and TCG instead of Dufay?  Vellard usually uses only male voices and also often includes plainchant - which is why his recordings receive high marks from me.

It is odd that you seem to accuse Vellard of being "beautiful" and yet prefer women sopranos - which is typically "beautiful", I guess, to some ears.  I find it entirely wrong.  I am so glad Anonymous 4 finally disbanded (after what, 100 recordings?)  I considered them an atrocity. 

This music is not supposed to sound pleasant, beautiful, or "cute" like soft bunnies.  Faith is hard, so the music that coveys the experience of faith should also have an edge, appear resolute and strong; disciplined, masculine - not soft focused, warm and fuzzy like I hear with female voices.  It is wrong to use large choirs and it is simply wrong to use women.

To each his own, I suppose, but there is the issue of what is more authentic for the period.

Is it just your preference, or is there any record that church and the composers in the Renaissance era thought sacred music should sound masculine, not beautiful? Yes, only male voices were allowed in church, but I think it was not because of musical reasons. As polyphony was being developed, voices in higher registers were more and more required, and the composers needed to rely on available singers / techniques like boy soprano, falsetto, or castrato. From purely musical point of view, wouldn't they have wanted to use women in the performance of their works if it was allowed? Or, they were so pious that such an idea didn't even occur to them?

I don't think female voice is necessarily cute, soft focused or fuzzy. (Dufay's Missa/Motets recordings by La Reverdie, Huelgas-Ensemble, Blue Heron, Oxford Camerata are all good.) I prefer good female singers to boy soprano or falsetto (I am ambivalent about counter tenor), even though it is not authentic. (However, regarding Anonymous 4, though I don't dislike the group, they sound too atmospheric to me.)

[San Antone]

Is it just your preference, or is there any record that church and the composers in the Renaissance era thought sacred music should sound masculine, not beautiful? Yes, only male voices were allowed in church, but I think it was not because of musical reasons. As polyphony was being developed, voices in higher registers were more and more required, and the composers needed to rely on available singers / techniques like boy soprano, falsetto, or castrato. From purely musical point of view, wouldn't they have wanted to use women in the performance of their works if it was allowed? Or, they were so pious that such an idea didn't even occur to them?

I don't think female voice is necessarily cute, soft focused or fuzzy. (Dufay's Missa/Motets recordings by La Reverdie, Huelgas-Ensemble, Blue Heron, Oxford Camerata are all good.) I prefer good female singers to boy soprano or falsetto (I am ambivalent about counter tenor), even though it is not authentic. (However, regarding Anonymous 4, though I don't dislike the group, they sound too atmospheric to me.)

Andrew Parrott has argued (convincingly imo) that there was no use of falsetto singers well into the Renaissance and put forward the idea that the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers were pitched a fourth lower than A=440.  This would not need falsetto, let alone female, voices but was done with a small choir of men: tenors and baritones.

You should seek out his recording of it as well as his recording of the Machaut Messe to hear what his group sounds like.

Regarding church use, no female singers were ever used, hence all of the sacred music for at least the Medieval (500-1400) and Renaissance (1400-1650) used only men for music for the church.  I think it was the norm also during the Baroque period to use boys and not women.  I am not sure when women began to sing in church but certainly for music falling under the rubric "Early Music" they were not used.

I happened to prefer the sound of a male group and follow Parrott's argument about the pitching of the music as well.

[Mandryka]

One thing I find really annoying is that Kandel doesn't say anything, at least as far as I know, about why he used women for the triplum in Machaut's mass, given that the performance seems to want to use the latest ideas about  It would be interesting to know what Gérard Geay has to say about it. At least Peter Philips is open about this - he just does what he likes!

They must have used women to sing the mass in convents!

[San Antone]

One thing I find really annoying is that Kandel doesn't say anything, at least as far as I know, about why he used women for the triplum in Machaut's mass, given that the performance seems to want to use the latest ideas about  It would be interesting to know what Gérard Geay has to say about it. At least Peter Philips is open about this - he just does what he likes!

They must have used women to sing the mass in convents!

Yes, Hildegard von Bingen had her female choir in the 12th century.  I looked for something from Gérard Geay, in the booklet and elsewhere, and couldn't find anything.  I was looking mainly because they sang a g# in the KYRIE I's first phrase that is not notated in the Leech-Wilkinson score and I wanted to find out where they got that idea.  I think Schmelzer also sings a g# here, so it might appear in one of the manuscript sources.  I asked E. E. Leach but haven't' heard back, and am on the verge of trying to contact Leech-Wilkinson or even Kandel himself.

I am unsure about motets but for secular songs women were used, in fact, there were female troubadours, I believe.  It was just in church where there was an overt non-use.

[prémont]

Yes, Hildegard von Bingen had her female choir in the 12th century.  I looked for something from Gérard Geay, in the booklet and elsewhere, and couldn't find anything.  I was looking mainly because they sang a g# in the KYRIE I's first phrase that is not notated in the Leech-Wilkinson score and I wanted to find out where they got that idea.  I think Schmelzer also sings a g# here, so it might appear in one of the manuscript sources. 

Not necessarily. The performers may have sharpened the notes according to the rules of musica ficta.

[San Antone]

Not necessarily. The performers may have sharpened the notes according to the rules of musica ficta.

Maybe; but they would be in the minority of other scholars, e.g. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson who has done the most current research and published the standard performance score has a g natural in the same place, which most groups observe.  It was quite surprising to hear it.

[prémont]

As far as I understand, the music of the French school's masses first and foremost served the purpose to decorate and embellish the words, and not to express them in the way we percieve the word "express" since the romantic age. Just like the decorated capitals in manuscripts from that time. This is my main objection to Schmelzer's interpretation, which is anything but beautiful and instead expressive in a kind of romantic sense. And his claimed intention of making Machaut's mass sound "new" to us is IMO besides the point. Think of all the great music which sounded new to the first listeners. Should we distort our interpretations of this to make it sound new to us again? What about the Choral symphony or Le Sacre du Printemps? I think Schmelzer has taken his arguments out of the air, with the purpose of creating a sensation. With all the existing fine recordings of Machaut's mass it is of course difficult to make a new, which creates sensation by informed arguments.

[prémont]

Maybe; but they would be in the minority of other scholars, e.g. Daniel Leech-Wilkinson who has done the most current research and published the standard performance score has a g natural in the same place, which most groups observe.  It was quite surprising to hear it.

I suppose you think of the G sharp in bar two of the Kyrie.

The edition by Lucy Cross (Ed. Peters 1998) which is intended as a score for practical performance, has a lot of "adaptions", In this edition the note is G sharp (sharped Causa Pulchritudinis). The rules of musica ficta were of course meant to be used in performance, which she explains in a chapter dealing with musica ficta.

[San Antone]

I suppose you think of the G sharp in bar two of the Kyrie.

The edition by Lucy Cross (Ed. Peters 1998) which is intended as a score for practical performance, has a lot of "adaptions", In this edition the note is G sharp (sharped Causa Pulchritudinis). The rules of musica ficta were of course meant to be used in performance, which she explains in a chapter dealing with musica ficta.

I have not seen her score, but will seek it out.  The g# may "solve" one problem (although I find the E minor tonality to be pleasing) but creates a different one with the c in the motetus creating a E augmented vertical sound.  I would like to understand why she chose to sharp the g whereas Leech-Wilkinson and others did not.  Also the tenor, which carries the chant, has a g natural which should not be changed.  g against g# seems very odd.

Granted during Machaut's time they were thinking linearly and not vertically, in fact tolerating "illegal" contrapuntal movement between internal voices as long as the counterpoint was pure in relation to the bottom voice at the time.  Still I wonder if that augmented chord might have been extraordinary for them.

[San Antone]

I found a review of the Cross score here:

Reviewed Work: Messe de Nostre Dame [For] Mixed Voices by Guillaume de Machaut, Lucy E. Cross
Review by: Virginia Newes
Notes
Second Series, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Mar., 2001), pp. 717-721
Published by: Music Library Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/900841

The conclusion of the reviewer is that this score should not be recommended because of the liberal application of sharps (which are all put inside the score instead of above as is usually done with editorial decisions).

I will keep looking for other opinions of this score.

Interesting, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[prémont]

I have not seen her score, but will seek it out.  The g# may "solve" one problem (although I find the E minor tonality to be pleasing) but creates a different one with the c in the motetus creating a E augmented vertical sound.  I would like to understand why she chose to sharp the g whereas Leech-Wilkinson and others did not.  Also the tenor, which carries the chant, has a g natural which should not be changed.  g against g# seems very odd.

In the bar in question she has also sharpened the g in the tenor and the c in the motetus, I suppose because of the rising steps in all three parts.