Gothic Voices is a durable British ensemble that has performed medieval secular music mostly in vocal a cappella style. You may or may not like that approach, but if you'd like to give it a try, this disc contains repertory in which unaccompanied singing works well. The group sings some of the fixed-form chansons of Machaut -- and not the usual ones -- but then seizes on the inherent complexity of Machaut's music and looks forward in time to one of his successors, the mysterious Solage. Nothing, not even a first name, is ...
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Gothic Voices is a durable British ensemble that has performed medieval secular music mostly in vocal a cappella style. You may or may not like that approach, but if you'd like to give it a try, this disc contains repertory in which unaccompanied singing works well. The group sings some of the fixed-form chansons of Machaut -- and not the usual ones -- but then seizes on the inherent complexity of Machaut's music and looks forward in time to one of his successors, the mysterious Solage. Nothing, not even a first name, is known of this composer, but he was active at the end of the fourteenth century, and his music, lumped at the time under the label of ars subtilior or "subtle art,"seems to have been intellectual and at times freakish. Many discs contain one or two of his pieces, but this one offers a more generous sampling of this music. For a taste of what you're getting into, sample his best-known piece, Fumeux fume par fumee (track 6), whose opening lines are here translated as "Out of dreams the...
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