Customer Reviews

Concert of Early Music

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A wonderful recording that totally captivated me when I was 20 years old, and it's still one of my all-time favorites. Jantina Noorman's brilliant vocal performance is scarcely to be believed -- incredibly varied and nuanced. This recording would be an excellent choice for anyone just getting interested in early music as well as the expert!

Musica Reservata's "A Concert of Early Music" is a _Must-Have_ for any lover of Medieval and Rennaisance tunes. While quirky (and even at times jarringly abrasive), this recording brought to the forefront the importance of Crusade-accquired instruments and techniques during the trouvere and troubador period in France.

This Album is a wonderful excercise in "Compare and Contrast". In one album, we hear the gamut of Early Music... from Jantina Noorman's rambunctious rendition's of Raimbaut de Vaquieras' "Kalenda Maya" and Robert Morton's "Il sera pour vous conbatu / l'home arme" to the refined, and even ethereal pieces that came much later, such as "Aime sospiri" and "Dont vient cela".

This is an early (and very important) attempt to put Early Music into its Social context. You can smell the Great Hall, the Cathedral, and the Marketplace in these performances. The performers were all having a ball from the sound of things. The instrumentalists and singers are at the top of their form... both rebecs and mezzo's are doing things that, while they may have been common in 1300, haven't been recorded as fervently since this album's release in 1972.

This is an incredible recording, absolutely beautiful. The selections are a wide variety of songs and styles (like, it's not just lutes) and the vocal performances are amazing. It really gives a good feel for how the time period was grubby and bawdy, as well as pious and mystical - like you're actually sitting in the king's court watching a troupe of performers. It's amazing when you realize that all the womens' parts on this were sung by ONE woman (the incredible Jantina Noorman). (I won't comment on the music itself, except to say this music is so beautifully played it sounds quite other-worldly.)

This would be a great CD for anyone with an interest in early music or medieval festivals, especially someone just starting out. The liner notes are really good, too, with lots of discussion about the songs, the period musical instruments, and the performers. I first got this in 1980 and it was just about the only recording I listened to for about 9 months. I was thrilled when it was released on CD and it's faithful to to original.

Most Early Music ensembles make the mistake of performing the music of the period in a way that screams "training!" In other words, too polite and formal. Musica Reservata Of London, took a different approach, realizing that singers were probably NOT formally trained to sing as they do today. The Reservata's approach is to present the songs with characterization, giving you a picture in your head of each performer. The resulting effect is more interesting and lively songs. Jantina Noorman's the lead here, giving you many different "characters", with differing emotional readings of each song, rather than just singing it the way she's been trained to. I love the harmony bursts in some of their renditions, such as "Faulte d'argent". And the male leads give you some characters too: the grinning, braggarty, singer of "Me Lyketh Ever"; the shy and clueless fellow sighing over the lady who has him bewitched in "Mir ist ein schonst brauns Madelein". I like "Es taget vor dem valde" also - a hunting song to rouse a dog/horse to get up and go rabbit hunting on a cold foggy morning? The prayer-like "Patrie pacis"; the blaring "Amor potest" (I've always called it, "The Ha-Ha Song", you'll see what I mean)
This CD is a musical time machine - you can just see the characters, the environment, the dazzling clothes of an era gone by.

if you have ever conceived of standing next to Breugel as he was painting . If you could imagine the music he might have heard then you owe it to yourself to consider Musica Reservata and all of their work. I cannot imagine a more likely rendering of this period music