Codex Calixtinus, Codex Huelgas and other very early Spanish music.

[Mandryka]

When I first heard this I could hardly believe my ears, I have never heard, as far as I remember, chant sung so meaningfully -- the diction is at a level of naturalness which is stunning. On examining the booklet, there's a note by Dominique Vellard which explains why

In an article on the study of the Las Huelgas manuscript,
Professor Wulf Arlt has highlighted the pragmatic
character of the musical notation. This in fact uses
several systems to testify as precisely as possible to the
different styles and stylistic developments present in
the manuscript.
After reading this article, I immersed myself in the
study of the twenty monodies present in the manuscript
and discovered that the scribe or scribes indeed used
elements of mensural notation to indicate rhythmic,
non-metrical inflections, here assuming the function
that the neumes of St. Gall and Laon in the tenth
century have for the melodies of Gregorian chant.
This clarification of plainchant notation is astonishingly
enlightening; the melodic line acquires its full meaning,
and this precision is a real boon for the performer, often
obliged to make difficult choices in the plainchant
repertoires of the period; indeed, many monodic
compositions written in the 12th and 13th centuries
contain very few rhythmic indications (see the following
example ). Above the melismas, I have translated into St. Gall
neumes the information that can be drawn from the
notation of the manuscript.
Contrary to mensural notation, relations in terms of
length are not mathematical but give indications for the
conduction of the melody; in particular, semi-breves
indicate accelerations that structure the melismas.
As with all music in the Middle Ages, the meaning of
the composition can only be understood when sung
properly. It is through the voice that the means used by
the scribe to notate the music reveal themselves.

Vellard believes that this study is instructive for all chant from the period, including Notre Dame, so I wait with bated breath his future recordings.

[Traverso]

When I first heard this I could hardly believe my ears, I have never heard, as far as I remember, chant sung so meaningfully -- the diction is at a level of naturalness which is stunning. On examining the booklet, there's a note by Dominique Vellard which explains why

Vellard believes that this study is instructive for all chant from the period, including Notre Dame, so I wait with bated breath his future recordings.

Thank you for posting this,the Ensemble GIlles Binchois is a very fine one.

[Mandryka]

Thank you for posting this,the Ensemble GIlles Binchois is a very fine one.

In chanted music at least, what I appreciate most is when Dominque Vellard is singing. He really is very talented at diction, and can make for me the most austere music interesting and moving. When I find my ears pricking up in one of the tracks on one of their recordings, it's often Dominique Vellard involved in the ensemble. The women singers in the ensemble haven't so far managed to fire my imagination.

For example there's a monophonic song here on the CD in the image I've attached called Beata Viscera

[Mandryka]

Codex Huelgas contains a lot of monophony and this recording focuses on that. Sometimes they use a single voice with an instrument, in fact the way they use instruments seems to me probably the most successful of all the Huelgas Codex recordings I've heard. But what interested me most is that sometimes they pair up voices for the monophonic songs. And the result is very much like Covey-Crump etc in their conductus series, these CDs



Very good soloists in the Sequentia - Barbara Thornton on top form. Central to the recording is the long Virgo Sidus Aureum, rarely recorded and a challenge to perform IMO.

Rex Obiit is particularly striking for the declaratory dramatic approach which characterises much of Sequentia's later performances.

[Mandryka]

This is a particularly lyrical, fluid, beautiful rendition of a selection of songs from Huelgas Codex. A cappella, small scale, and subtle -- rapt, serious and relaxing. Anonymous 4 have a distinctive vocality, it does not sound like Brahms or Bach, it does not sound like Disneyfied medieval. it does not sound like scouts round a camp fire or a happy clappy evangelical church on Sunday. The timbre of each one of their voices is similar, and the effect to me in the polyphonic pieces is a sort of coherence which is like hearing a fugue on organum plenum or on a harpsichord. 

[Mandryka]

Paul Helmer was a Canadian musicologist who published a performing edition of one of the Calixtinus masses. It's beautiful and this recording is a gem. A great variety of textures and contrapuntal effects and rhythms.  I have no idea who is singing, but they do it with passion and colour, and the sound quality is ideal. Impossible to stop listening when you start. Well worth seeking out.