Love, Revelry and the Dance in Mediaeval Music

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Millenarium is an early-music instrumental ensemble directed by organist Christophe Deslignes and percussionist Thierry Gomar. Personnel on the albums listed above have ranged from just the pair ( The Masters of the Florentine Organetto , on Trecento organ music) to seven musicians ( Libre Vermell, Danza ) with other groups added for specific projects ( Libre Vermell, Carmina Burana: Officium Lusorum , etc.). Millenarium has focused on the late medieval/early Renaissance end of the early-music spectrum in the 13th and 14th centuries, paying particular attention to the scholarly reconstruction of music based on surviving commentaries, images, and a close study of both classical and folk traditions. None of this conveys the vitality, period sense of style, or improvisational skill that these recordings supply. 

If you aren’t familiar with the group, then taken together, their performances probably come closest to those of the Boston Camerata in terms of program design and stylistic approach. In Joy and Douce amie , longer songs alternate with short dances, and an Arabic influence upon the latter is pronounced. Successive strophes of songs are performed with vocal improvisation and without instrumental shifts in the accompaniment, though Deslignes writes of “light cutting” to avoid monotony for modern audiences. (There’s much debate over whether troubadours and trouvères varied ornamentation or accompaniment during lengthy songs, but evidence is lacking for any conclusions—and indeed, may never have existed. Variations in performance over time and place may well have existed.) Although spoken word isn’t used as binder as the Boston Camerata does, there is a palpable sense of theater in most of these albums, in the sense of the spectator/listener being drawn in to a highly expressive, self-referential world. 

The most distinctive of the included albums in this respect is the Carmina Burana: Officium Lusorum disc. Where the Carmina Burana: Tempus transit… album is concerned with philosophy, and sacred and secular love, Officium Lusorum attempts (with the assistance of research by Pierre-Emmanuel Guilleray) to recreate a Mass of the Fools—part of the All Fools Day, or Feast of the Fools, that the Roman Catholic Church tolerated while it had to, as an inheritance of the pagan Roman Hilaria Matris Deûm , and then slowly strangled as its secular power base grew. Millenarium sets the framework of their re-creation between Christmas and 12th Night, in 13th-century northern France, by which time the Ordinary of the Mass was considered sacrosanct, and is surrounded here by goliard-inspired parody. The result is an accurate performance of Mass organum, providing the greatest possible contrast to lively dances and satiric literary content, sometimes bitingly so—as in the calling down of God’s curses upon all those, secular and sacred, who are avaricious and refuse to support beggars: “Effunde, domine, iram tuam super avaros et tenaces…” 

The musical side of this humor includes but is not limited to over-elaborate vocal ornamentation, grotesque slurring between notes, gasping breaths between phrases of off-pitch plainchant, foreign cultural interpolations, and folk style improvisations on top of chant. In bloodless print this sounds repetitive and dull, but the performers manage to sustain several cuts of this, among them one lasting 24 minutes. Various groups have recorded similar efforts over the years, most memorably René Clemencic and his Clemencic Consort (currently on Harmonia Mundi 195335), but I find Millenarium’s version just as lively if more dramatic due to internal contrasts with the Ordinary. As always where perceptions of humor are concerned, your mileage may differ. 

I have nothing but praise for Ricercar’s inclusion of the copious cut listings and liner notes from each of the albums, but shouldn’t they have considered adding a contents page? The 111-page, French and English booklet simply offers one album’s listings and notes after another. With no easy method to locate any album save the first, it’s a bit of a chore finding what you want. Texts and translations would have been helpful, as well, both in the Carmina Burana material, and the work of the troubadours and trouvères. That aside, highly recommended. There are no right or wrong ways to perform this music, anachronisms and technical deficiencies to one side, and Millenarium’s way with all of it is both thoroughly researched and refreshingly direct. 

FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

contents:

1. Carmina burana: no 215, Officium Lusorum by Anonymous 

2. Totz altres joys, song by Anonymous 

3. A que as cousas coitadas, song by Cantigas de Sa Anonymous 

4. Trotto, dance for instrumental ensemble by Anonymous 

5. La Quarte Estampie Royal by Anonymous 

6. L'autrier jost'una sebissa by Marcabru 

7. La sirena by Anonymous 

8. Principio di virtù, istanpitta by Anonymous 

9. La Manfredina et la Rota by Anonymous 

10. Saltarello No 4 by Anonymous 

11. La Septime Estampie Real by Anonymous 

12. Danse Anglaise by Anonymous 

13. Saltarello No. 8 (GB-LBl Add.29987) by Anonymous 

14. Nota manta, song by Troubadour Anonymous 

15. Lamento di Tristano & La Rotta by Anonymous 

16. Da che Deus mamou, song by Cantigas de Sa Anonymous 

17. Saltarello "Petits riens" by Anonymous 

18. Amors m'est u cuer entree by Henri III de Brabant 

19. Lamento du Val fourni, song by Richard De Fournival 

20. Ghaetta (An Istampita) (14th cent.) by Anonymous 

21. Llibre Vermell de Montserrat by Anonymous 

22. Procession des pèlerins by Anonymous 

23. Cuncti simus concanentes by Anonymous 

24. Work(s): Inperairitz / Verges ses par (chanson avec envoi à 2 voix) by Anonymous 

25. Kyrie Rex Genitor (for Christmas Midnight Mass) by Anonymous 

26. Res est admirabilis, sequence (polyphony) by Gradual of Ali Anonymous 

27. Ave Maria, offertory by Anonymous 

28. Mariam Matrem Virginem, virelai for 3 voices (Llibre Vermell) by Anonymous 

29. Bal redon, improvisation by Xavier Terrazza 

30. Los Set gotxs recomptarem by Anonymous 

31. Advocatam innocemus by Anonymous 

32. O Virgo splendens, canon for 3 voices (Llibre Vermell) by Anonymous 

33. Danza vermeillosa by Anonymous 

34. Laudemus virginem, canon for 3 voices by Anonymous 

35. Stella splendens in monte, virelai for 2 voices (Llibre Vermell) by Anonymous 

36. Fauvel nous fait présent, motet in 3 parts by Anonymous 

37. Mater patris et filia, offertory by Anonymous 

38. Splendens ceptigera by Anonymous 

39. Polorum Regina by Anonymous 

40. Work(s): Agnus Dei / Ave Maria by Anonymous 

41. Ad Mortem Festinamus, virelai (fol. 26v) by Anonymous 

42. Carmina burana: Excerpt(s) by Anonymous 

43. Carmina Burana: Sic mea fata CB 116 by Anonymous 

44. Carmina burana: no 73, Clauso Chronos by Anonymous 

45. Carmina burana: no 71, Axe Phebus aureo by Anonymous 

46. Carmina burana: no 31, Vite perdite me legi by Anonymous 

47. Carmina burana: no 19, Fas et Nefas by Anonymous 

48. Carmina burana: no 159, Veris dulcis in tempore by Anonymous 

49. Carmina burana: no 153, Tempus transit gelidum by Anonymous 

50. Carmina burana: no 15, Celum non animum by Anonymous 

51. Carmina burana: Dulce solum by Anonymous 

52. Touz eforciez by Anonymous 

53. Rose des rosaces by Anonymous 

54. Pour coi me bait by Anonymous 

55. Li nouviauz tanz by Anonymous 

56. la tierche Estampie royale by Anonymous 

57. Improvisation by Anonymous 

58. Estampie janus by Anonymous 

59. Estampida arnautz by Anonymous 

60. Douce Dame by Anonymous 

61. Dame, ensinc est by Anonymous 

62. Ce fut en mai by Anonymous 

63. Au renouvel du tens by Anonymous 

64. Amours, ou trop tard by Anonymous 

65. Danca Amorosa by Anonymous 

66. Can vei le lauzta mover by Bernart de Ventadorn 

67. Fortz causa es que tot lo major dan by Gaucelm Faidit 

68. Tan m'abelis jois et amors e chans by Berenguier de Palazol 

69. Jamais nulz tems nom pot re far Amors by Gaucelm Faidit 

Millenarium

Choeur de Chambre de Namur

Psallentes