Guillaume de Machaut: Motets

Hilliard Ensemble (Artist)

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 30, 2004)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ecm Records
• ASIN: B0001A7D3G
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #63,632 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Celebrating their 30th anniversary, the Hilliard Ensemble turns to the Motets of Machaut, 18 exquisitely wrought works that explore a wide range of human emotions within the context of a timeless style, as piercing today as it must have been to 14th Century Parisians. The texts range from darker variations of courtly romances to the vagaries of love and fortune, reflections on envy, deceit, morality, death, and salvation. Machaut clothes these in long, flowing musical lines, often florid ones whose complex patterns reveal bold harmonic twists and turns, an exhilarating combination of austerity and rich complexity. The Hilliard Ensemble--here five well-tuned voices, two countertenors, two tenors, and baritone--sing with an intensity often missing from more formalistic performances of medieval music, though never violating stylistic strictures. Perhaps these short masterpieces best retain their freshness when heard in chunks of three or four, but there's no question this is an essential acquisition for lovers of early music. Completing the recommendation, the engineers beautifully capture the glow of the church acoustic. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilliard Ensemble as Good as Ever, April 8, 2004

By	Charles Richards (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The Hilliard Ensemble was founded by Paul Hillier thirty years ago, a small male choir specializing in vocal music of the Mediaval and Renaissance periods. Although they've strayed a bit from their original purpose in those thirty years, recording modern music more and more frequently (as well as having several compositions comissioned for them) and even releasing a billboard-charting crossover album about ten years ago (the beautiful "Officium"), in this new release they get back to their early music roots.
And, I'm happy to say, they still sound as wonderful as ever.
Guillaume Machaut was one of the most versatile composers of his time, writing polyphonic music for the church, chansons, motets, and monodic songs and virelais as well. He's one of the few composers of the time whose work survives in bulk, and one of the few whose life was even close to being documented. Because of that, he has a sort of aura about him as one of the first "professional" composers that we know of. His music is brilliant, diversified, and soul-wrenching.
His motets are highly representational, not only of his secular output in particular, but of the motet form of the high Renaissance in general. They are almost always in three parts (the duplum, triplum, and tenor) with each part having a different text; in many cases, the texts, sung simultaneously, are extremely different in character and subject, which makes them all the more fascinating.
There is a great sadness to Machaut's motets, and the Hilliard Ensemble captures this sublime melancholy perfectly. The word "ethereal" is bandied about and used far too frequently these days, but it is a fitting description for the sound of this music: if you've never heard this sort of thing, you have a real treat in store for you. Though written some six hundred years ago, these pieces are remarkably contemporary and, like all great art, have a timeless quality that speaks to us today. The texts, also, deal with emotions and problems for humans that are as easy to relate to today as they were when they were written. Fortunately, complete English translations are included in the CD booklet, I would heartily recommend that any listener read them to get the full experience of these amazing works.
To conclude, this is a terrific release, and should please anyone who enjoys beautiful music, not just the early music aficionado.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lovely, but ..., December 14, 2004

By	amc654 (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Frankly, this disc sounds very little like Machaut and very much like the Hilliard Ensemble (and even more like ECM). To be sure, it's lovely singing, and it is certainly well recorded (though ECM's penchant for 9" reverb does seem quite silly), but the wash of sound favored by the Hilliard Ensemble is very much out of place here, I think (much better in the legitimately choral works of the late Renaissance). The tempi are too slow, the articulation is too smooth, and performance practice too Anglicized. For a better, more appropriately performed Machaut, look to the fantastic Project Ars Nova disc on new albion.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Too beautiful?, January 19, 2005

By	Jeff Abell (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Can something be too beautiful? The Hilliard Ensemble's creamy vocal tone and beautiful intonation make all of their recordings a sensual and delicious experience. But is that really the best approach to Machaut's motets? 14th-century French music has lots of rhythmic angularities, and surprisingly harsh sonorities (involving parallel fourths). These sharp edges seem to have been sanded off in the Hilliard's version, as if they couldn't bear to sacrifice their luscious vocal sound for the sake of the composer's slightly knotty style. As much as I admire these singers (it all sounds incredibly lovely), I prefer my Machaut from groups like Ensemble Organum, who sound more like folk-singers, in their raw, vibrato-free style. People who like beautiful singing will probably love this recording, but I think this music is better represented by a little rough treatment.