CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Medieval & Renaissance Minstrels, Songs & Dances

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: Legacy

Release Date July 18, 1994
This is a fun album. it's festive, playful, and a real joy to listen to. There is something for everyone in this album--including and especially SCAdians. In fact there's probably at least one piece on this album that every SCAdian dancer, musician, and/or bard will recognize. There's courtly songs, love songs, and get out of your chair dances, even formal pieces you associate with concert halls.

Whether you play in the SCA or just love great historical music, this is one of the better albums I've ever bought--on amazon or anywhere else!

CD-Charts Position 2
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Guillaume Du Fay: Mille Bonjours!

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: Alpha Productions

Release Date January 08, 2008
Without a moment's doubt, I can say that this is the best-performed CD of Dufay's secular chansons that I've ever heard, with 19 of those supremely sophisticated miniature masterpieces assembled in a concert progress from love-sickness to joie-de-vivre. This recording is a perfect companion to Diabolus in Musica's CD of Dufay's most memorable mass, Missa Se La Face Ay Pale (which I've reviewed previously. Wonder of wonders, the chanson Se La Face Ay Pale is included on this disk, in an elaborated "keyboard" setting from a tablature manuscript, played on an instrument that worked somewhat like a harpsichord and sounds rather like a harp on energy drinks. The singers have to share glory in this performance with some extraordinarily skillful playing ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 3
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Scattered Rhymes

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: Harmonia Mundi

Release Date April 08, 2008
Wow! I guarantee most people will not have heard a disc like this before. The Machaut is sublime, gritty, unexpected and just excellently performed here by the Orlando Consort.

However it's Tarik O'Regan's 'Scattered Rhymes', which opens the disc that will blow you away. For one thing it's FAST, something which most new choral music is not. For this piece, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (Paul Hillier) joins the Orlando Consort and the effect is mesmerizing. I think it feels like a concerto for the Consort, where the soloists get to show off their virtuosic mastery against the rich sound of the Estonians.

I repeat: you will not have heard anything like this before!

CD-Charts Position 4
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The Emma Kirkby Collection

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
by: Claudio Monteverdi, George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach, Sigismondo D'India, John Dowland, Guillaume de Machaut, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Campion, Henry Lawes, Henry Purcell, Michael East, The Consort of Musicke, Taverner Consort Players, Roy Goodman, Anthony Rooley, Emma Kirkby, Christopher Page, Denys Darlow, Andrew Parrott, Parley of Instruments, London Handel Orchestra, Gothic Voices, David Reichenberg, Instrumental Ensemble

Release Date November 12, 1993
Much of this vocal music is from an era with which I am unfamiliar. It ranges from the work of Hildegarde of Bergen (1098-1179) to Handel (1685-1759); obviously, this album covers much territory! Emma Kirkby displays her virtuosity on this CD. The notes from the CD say that "One of the favorite adjectives used by critics. . .is the word 'celestial.'" At a later point, the notes speak of Kirkby further: "There is a freshness, an openness, an honesty about her voice. . ."

Some comments on works randomly selected.

Monteverdi's "Confitebor tibi, Domine." Here, Kirkby displays a clean light voice. She exhibits a spirited "Gloria Patri" with some spare but interesting ornamentation.

Campion's "Now hath Flora ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
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Antoine Busnois: Missa O Crux lignum; Motets; Chansons

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
by: Antoine Busnois, Orlando Consort

Release Date January 11, 2005
A friend brought this disc to my attention and I am very glad that he did. Despite less name recognition than his contemporary Dufay, this disc presents Busnois as a master poyphonist with a crucial role in the development of the genre that founds it zenith in Bach and Beethoven (Op. 133).

The raison d'etre of this disc is the Mass. While it has a significant length of half an hour it is a work of a concentration that reminded me of Anton Webern at his best. While the "chaste tonality" clearly limited many of Busnois' contemporaries, he appears a master of making less of more and in exploring it to the max. As a result, this mass shines in its combination of Escherian construction and pastel tonal colors.

The Orlando consort ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 6
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Secular Music from the Chantilly Codex

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: New Albion Records

Release Date April 05, 1994
A friend brought this disc to my attention and I am very glad that he did. Despite less name recognition than his contemporary Dufay, this disc presents Busnois as a master poyphonist with a crucial role in the development of the genre that founds it zenith in Bach and Beethoven (Op. 133).

The raison d'etre of this disc is the Mass. While it has a significant length of half an hour it is a work of a concentration that reminded me of Anton Webern at his best. While the "chaste tonality" clearly limited many of Busnois' contemporaries, he appears a master of making less of more and in exploring it to the max. As a result, this mass shines in its combination of Escherian construction and pastel tonal colors.

The Orlando consort ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

The Study of Love

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: Hyperion UK

Release Date September 09, 2008
A friend brought this disc to my attention and I am very glad that he did. Despite less name recognition than his contemporary Dufay, this disc presents Busnois as a master poyphonist with a crucial role in the development of the genre that founds it zenith in Bach and Beethoven (Op. 133).

The raison d'etre of this disc is the Mass. While it has a significant length of half an hour it is a work of a concentration that reminded me of Anton Webern at his best. While the "chaste tonality" clearly limited many of Busnois' contemporaries, he appears a master of making less of more and in exploring it to the max. As a result, this mass shines in its combination of Escherian construction and pastel tonal colors.

The Orlando consort ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

The Mirror of Narcissus - Secular Songs by Guillaume de Machaut

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: Hyperion UK

Release Date November 11, 1993
I'd forgotten this disk in a corner of my collection until I heard an concert by another group, Liber UnUsualis. I reviewed their CD "Unrequited" quite enthusiastically, but then I searched for "The Mirror of Narcissus" and listened to the two head-to-head. Results: both good, but "The Mirror" is more intense, more passionate, and more artful in articulating the hockets and other effects of Ars Nova heterophony. If Gothic Voices ever had a reputation of being "academic but dull", that was a bad rap. This performance is fiery.

CD-Charts Position 9
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Remede de Fortune

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
from: New Albion Records

Release Date May 16, 1994
The title of the disc is somewhat of a misnomer -- not all of the pieces here are from the Remede de Fortune, but this is no complaint. All of these are performed with instrumental accompaniment (lute, vielle, symphonia, harp), which works especially well for the solo songs (I'll admit I can't listen to solo voice a capella for very long!). All the vocal performances are extremely good, ranging from sweet to visceral, even (to risk being labeled a ponce) bluesy. Just listen to "Tels rit au main qui au soir pleure", you'll see what I mean.

CD-Charts Position 10
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The Unknown Lover: Songs by Solage and Machaut

CD-Charts > Music > Virelais
by: Robert MacDonald, Julian Podger, Leigh Nixon, Stephen Harrold

Release Date December 05, 2006
Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) dominated 14th Century music and was the leading practitioner of the French "Ars Nova," a movement that made radical advances in the composition of polyphony and set the stage for the musical flowering of the Renaissance. Machaut's protégé Solage mastered the highly complex "ars subtilior" style that represented the final musical innovation of the Medieval era. On this recording, both composers' secular works come to life through beautiful and inspired performances by the early music vocal consort Gothic Voices.

"The Unknown Lover" turns a spotlight on Solage, a rather mysterious figure from the late 14th century. Solage's known output consists of some dozen secular songs found in the legendary Chantilly Codex (c. 1400), ... Read More: