Customer Reviews

Guillaume Du Fay: Mille Bonjours!

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4 star:		(1)
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highly recommendabale, this excellent cd of the most outstanding composer of his age: elegant, melodious music, polyphonic, but not in an austere way; fluent and incredible harmonious, fascinating music. The execution? Superb. Grateful to have been able to buy this rich, highly rewarding music! HCA

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 of late Medieval instruments: vielle (fiddle) and Burgundian harp especially. But there's plenty of glory to be shared.

The name of this ensemble - Diabolus in Musica - would probably get this CD banned from certain libraries in Alaska, but actually the term refers to the interval of the tritone (the augmented fourth) which either in chords or in scale passages caused innumerable headaches for polyphonists, always sounding "wrong' to their ears. The solution involved something called "musica ficta", the addition of a sharp or a flat to avoid the tritone. Such ficta were seldom notated; the performer was expected to recognize the need and to know the rules. Rest assured that Ensemble Diabolus in Musica is totally avoidant of devilish dissonances.

The secular chanson repertoire, from Machaut to Dufay, is the prime glory of Medieval music, as pre-eminent as the madrigal in the late Renaissance or the polka at a Minnesota family reunion.

This is perhaps the best Dufay album I have ever heard. Combining the genius of Dufay with the topnotch musicianship of Diabolus in Musica has given rise to a beautiful concert. Definitely recommended - Mary Devlin

Guillaume Du Fay started from modest beginnings, the illegitimate son of a priest and a "lady", but rose quickly through the ranks in the Church and became the early-Renaissance's most celebrated and popular composer.

While his life was dedicated to the church, his compositions weren't entirely liturgical. In "Mille Bonjours", we are treated to an extensive sampling of his secular works - works for which he became the equivalent of a Renaissance period "pop star". While some liturgical elements are evident in the compositions, this is music purely for the masses (as in general populace), and reflects the style that came to represent the Burgundian School, of which Du Fay was a founder. His work was widely played and copied throughout Europe in his day, and for about a century thereafter - all the more impressive since the transposition of music into written sheet music hadn't been effected in that day.

The composition and execution of this compilation is top notch.

Given the iconic status accorded to Dufay by modern musicology (and by his contemporaries, for that matter), it is perhaps surprising that recordings of his secular music remain so hard to come by. For this reason alone, the release of a recording by one of the best groups currently specializing in medieval music is a welcome event: indeed, anyone familiar with Diabolus in Musica's other recordings for Alpha and Studio SM will already be aware of the invaluable contribution this ensemble has made to the recorded legacy of medieval music. Of the many recordings which could be highlighted to substantiate this point, mention must be made here of their excellent reading of Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame (Alpha A132) and their recordings of music from the Notre Dame school ('Manuscrits de Tours' SM 2672 and 'Vox Sonora' SM 2673 - both these recordings, and indeed many others by Diabolus which are apparently unavailable in the USA, are listed on the French amazon site).

Sadly, however, it must be admitted that in this instance, anticipation is met largely with disappointment. Textless parts are routinely played on a vielle or gittern instead of being vocalised, as indeed are all textless melismas in parts where the text is given in the manuscripts (normally the cantus), and even the texted parts themselves are occasionally subjected to instrumental doubling. Guerber's justification for this approach - namely the absence of text and/or the "instrumental" quality of the contratenor (liner notes, pp.18-22) - is hopelessly out of date; in fact, it could have been lifted straight from the writings of Arnold Schering (writing in 1931) or Gilbert Reaney (1956), etc. Such arguments are evidently at odds with the consensus of most of today's preeminent medieval music specialists, who have provided compelling evidence and arguments in favour of "a cappella" (unaccompanied voices) performances as being the norm. Even if it is perhaps extreme to argue against the use of any instruments whatsoever in secular polyphony from this period, it is nevertheless disconcerting that just one track (12) is performed entirely by voices alone (see below *). Musicological concerns aside, it could also be asked whether the predominant place given to instrumental participation is really justified, aesthetically speaking - it's not bad, but similarly, it's clearly not as accomplished as the playing of the best of today's exponents.

The keyboard pieces are generally better done, although it would have been nice if they had been performed on an organ (the instrument for which they were most probably conceived), and better still if the temptation to compose (/?improvise?) an introduction to 'Mit ganczem Willen' (track 7) had been resisted...! Incidentally, the ballade 'Je languis en piteux martire' is currently thought to be the work of John Dunstable (c.1390-1453) rather than Dufay, the composer to whom it is attributed here (see below **).

In closing, is it fair to chastise Diabolus in Musica for adopting the same approach as just about everyone else in this repertoire...? Perhaps not. On the other hand, it is somewhat depressing that the "voices + instruments" stranglehold remains so persistent that even a predominantly vocal group feels the need to orchestrate this music. Will there ever be a recording devoted to Dufay's magnificent secular output which actually attempts to present it in the format he himself almost certainly envisaged...?

(*) Incidentally, the only other place where there is unaccompanied singing - on the words "Charles gentil" in 'Resvellies vous' (track 9) - merely exaggerates the implausibility of the voices + instruments approach; in this track, the contrast between the 2 approaches sounds as peculiar as it did in the 1980 performance by the Medieval Ensemble of London (L'Oiseau Lyre 452 557-2, CD1, track 3), where exactly the same decision was taken...was Guerber perhaps inspired by this interpretation, I wonder...?

(**) In the source from which it is taken (Trent 92), the attribution to Dufay has actually been written over an erased one to Dunstable. Furthermore, Margaret Bent has argued persuasively in favour of Dunstable's authorship on stylistic grounds (see her article 'The Songs of Dufay: Some Questions of Form and Authenticity', Early Music VIII, 1980, p.454-9)