Machaut and Part Masses + instruments

[ardcarp]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gkqr

I apologise for posting this programme on the Choir as well as Early Music Now. However it may be of special interest to choral music enthusiasts. The tiny bit of info on the website was utterly misleading. The Machaut Mass wasn't mentioned at all, and as for 'traditional English music'....er??

Anyone who has sung the Machaut will have been fascinated by it. And here it has a (conjectural) accompaniment by some instruments from Scandinavia whose origins are thought to be contemporary with Machaut.

All sung in the spacious acoustic of the Abbey Church of St Nicholas in Tallinn. And Part is one of the so-called minimalists I can believe in!

[Miles Coverdale]

Here is a wonderful performance of the Machaut in a beautiful Romanesque abbey. This is how I always imagine it being sung, if that makes sense.

[ardcarp]

Yes, very direct and straight sound. Flicking through Youtube there are some deliberately 'rough-sounding' versions. Who knows what it might have sounded like? A fair assumption (given Notre Dame's eminence in polyphony from 1200 - 1400) might be that they sang in tune. Voice-production? Possibly very straight, but tone? Harsh? Ethereal? Solo voices? Maybe not.

But here's a contemporaneous account of the Notre Dame School from the slightly earlier Leonin/Perotin era:

Bad taste has, however, degraded even religious worship, bringing into the presence of God, into the recesses of the sanctuary a kind of luxurious and lascivious singing, full of ostentation, which with female modulation astonishes and enervates the souls of the hearers. When you hear the soft harmonies of the various singers, some taking high and others low parts, some singing in advance, some following in the rear, others with pauses and interludes, you would think yourself listening to a concert of sirens rather than men, and wonder at the powers of voices … whatever is most tuneful among birds, could not equal. Such is the facility of running up and down the scale; so wonderful the shortening or multiplying of notes, the repetition of the phrases, or their emphatic utterance: the treble and shrill notes are so mingled with tenor and bass, that the ears lost their power of judging. When this goes to excess it is more fitted to excite lust than devotion; but if it is kept in the limits of moderation, it drives away care from the soul and the solicitudes of life, confers joy and peace and exultation in God, and transports the soul to the society of angels. (John of Salisbury)

[DracoM]

Almost eerie, other-wordly mix, but v.interesting.
Loved the John of Salisbury quote. So much 'harumphing'!

[Miles Coverdale]

Yes, very direct and straight sound. Flicking through Youtube there are some deliberately 'rough-sounding' versions. Who knows what it might have sounded like? A fair assumption (given Notre Dame's eminence in polyphony from 1200 - 1400) might be that they sang in tune. Voice-production? Possibly very straight, but tone? Harsh? Ethereal? Solo voices? Maybe not.

But here's a contemporaneous account of the Notre Dame School from the slightly earlier Leonin/Perotin era:

Bad taste has, however, degraded even religious worship, bringing into the presence of God, into the recesses of the sanctuary a kind of luxurious and lascivious singing, full of ostentation, which with female modulation astonishes and enervates the souls of the hearers. When you hear the soft harmonies of the various singers, some taking high and others low parts, some singing in advance, some following in the rear, others with pauses and interludes, you would think yourself listening to a concert of sirens rather than men, and wonder at the powers of voices … whatever is most tuneful among birds, could not equal. Such is the facility of running up and down the scale; so wonderful the shortening or multiplying of notes, the repetition of the phrases, or their emphatic utterance: the treble and shrill notes are so mingled with tenor and bass, that the ears lost their power of judging. When this goes to excess it is more fitted to excite lust than devotion; but if it is kept in the limits of moderation, it drives away care from the soul and the solicitudes of life, confers joy and peace and exultation in God, and transports the soul to the society of angels. (John of Salisbury)

The trouble with these sorts of accounts is that they tend to be written by people who are very opposed to what they're writing about. As a consequence, they tend to use so much hyperbole that it's difficult to discern the truth of the situation.