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Early Music Today (06-08/2014)
HMG507269
3149020726914
The indefatigable Anonymous 4
turn their attentions here to the trecento two and three‑voice songs
of Francesco Landini, who achieved a place in the neo‑humanistic musical and
intellectual elite of 14th‑century Florence despite being rendered blind in
early childhood by smallpox. His ballate deal with courtly
love with poignant grace. Landini's notated pitches are of course construed
here within female‑voice ranges, but, with the exception of some addition of
text to untexted lines explicated within the liner notes, the readings are
otherwise very pure.
There will be no
surprises here to anyone familiar with the group’s output: their
sound remains as pellucid and as ethereal as ever, and while the
homogenisation of texture isn’t for everyone (I must confess that I
should prefer to hear these trecento polyphonic lines in
sharper relief, grainier of texture), it’s undeniably beautiful. Recorded
in a Lucas film studio in California, the sound is overlaid with a glossy
patina; again, this lends itseif
more to a sleek background music function than to the aural comprehension or
indeed of the texts. However to criticise this score is perhaps to
misunderstand the nature of Anonymous 4’s remit. While some listeners may
find a listen through the whole disc rather like eating an entire box of
chocolate in one sitting, there is no question that this is another example
of Anonymous 4’s mellifluous, perfectly blended sound. Dante described the
courtly lyric style that developed during his lifetime as the dolce stil
nuovo ‑ and Anonymous 4s sound is certainly dolce.
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