Texte paru dans: / Appeared in: Blue Heron |
||||
|
Outil de traduction ~ (Très approximatif) |
||||
|
Reviewer: Peter
Loewen
This is the first volume of
Blue Heron’s complete recordings of songs by Johannes Ockeghem. As Sean
Gallagher rightly points out, scholars have made more of a fuss over
Ockeghem’s masses, and for reason. The masses show more systematic
approaches to composition, especially contrapuntal techniques like the
canon. The mensuration canons on view in the Prolation Mass are
breathtaking. And contemporary patrons were fascinated with them, too, as
the Chigi Codex shows. Only in one of his roughly two dozen chansons does
Ockeghem show similar interest in contrapuntal complexity—the three-part
rondeau ‘Prenez Sur Moi’, not performed here. Still, critics like Johannes
Tinctoris make clear that Ockeghem’s chansons had a strong reception. Many
of them are preserved in contemporary chansonniers. A few of the most famous
chansons are here. The rondeau ‘D’ung Aultre Amer’ has a slower tempo than
one may be used to, but it is quite lovely at this pace.
‘Mort, Tu as Navré/Miserere’,
the lament on the death of the Burgundian composer Gilles Binchois (1460),
has some out-of-tune singing to start, but it is gorgeous thereafter. The
low range for men’s voices here is somewhat of a signature of Ockeghem’s.
The discantus is not quite as crisp as one would like in the tricky rhythms
of the rondeau ‘S’elle M’Amera/ Petite Camusecte’. But the duet between
tenor and discantus in ‘Fors Seullement Contre ce qu’ay Promis/Fors
Seullement L’Actente’ is beautifully flamboyant. The program also includes
Ockeghem’s setting of John Bedyngham’s ‘O Rosa Bella’, which appears to have
been all the rage in the middle of the 15th Century. | ||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
Cliquez l'un ou l'autre
bouton pour découvrir bien d'autres critiques de CD |
||||
