Texte paru dans: / Appeared in:
  
Fanfare Magazine: 36:3 (01-02/2013)
Pour s'abonner / Subscription information
Les abonnés à Fanfare Magazine ont accès aux archives du magazine sur internet.
Subscribers to Fanfare Magazine have access to the archives of the magazine on the net.
Aeon
AE1218


Code-barres / Barcode : 3760058360187

Consultez toutes les évaluations recensées pour ce cd ~~~~ Reach all the evaluations located for this CD

This French ensemble of three singers and two players has assembled a program of English music of the Hundred Years’ War, both sacred polyphony and songs. It begins appropriately with the Agincourt carol, which gives the disc its title. The only previous issue of similar scope that I can find is one of the most elusive Musica Reservata programs on Philips, Music from the Time of the Hundred Years’ War. It appeared in 1969, devoting one side each to French and English music, but duplicated nothing here except the Agincourt carol, which ended rather than began that program. This group is more genteel than the famously raucous British group. Mingled with a lot of unfamiliar tunes are, in addition to the title item, the contrafact to the summer canon (Perspice Christicola) and There Is No Rose. An oddity is two versions of Do Way Robin/Sancta Mater, apparently intended to give different perspectives on how the hidden canon is revealed. The manuscript sources of all the selections are cited. The group takes its name from the hero of the 17th-century French saga Astrée (so I learned something here, or two things if you count the origin of the name of a French record label). The performances are light and airy, not to say restrained, so there is little that is bellicose about this disc. Our reviewers seem to have missed several earlier discs by this group on other labels. This is a pleasant traversal of mostly unfamiliar tunes.
Fermer la fenêtre/Close window

Cliquez l'un ou l'autre bouton pour découvrir bien d'autres critiques de CD
 Click either button for many other reviews