CECUS Colours, blindness and memorial Alexander Agricola and his contemporaries
GraindelavoixBjörn Schmelzer
GCD P32105
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Performing artists
Graindelavoix Björn Schmelzer
Voices: Olalla Alemán, Patrizia Hardt, Yves Van Handenhove, Marius Peterson, Paul De Troyer, Lieven Gouwy, Thomas Vanlede, Amout Malflfiet, Antoni Fajardo
Instruments: Lluis Coll i Trulls, Jan Van Outryve, Floris De Rycker, Thomas Baeté, Liam Fennelly, William Taylor
Production details
Playing time 79:09 Recorded in Duisburg (Belgium) in February 2010 Engineered and produced by Manuel MohinoExecutive producer: Carlos Céster Art direction: Valentín Iglesias Booklet essay: Björn Schmelzer English Français Deutsch Español
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CECUS
Colours, blindness and memorial
I. MÉMORIAL
1. Romance de la muerte del muy esclarecido rey don Felipe Anonymous
2. Plorer, gemir, crier / Requiem Pierre de la Rue
3. Delicta juventutis Pierre de la Rue
4. Absalon, fili mi Pierre de la Rue
5. Doleo super te Pierre de la Rue
II. LES LARMES, LES AVEUGLES
6. Cecus non judicat de coloribus, prima pars Alexander Agricola
7. Fortuna desperata Alexander Agricola
8. Si dedero sompnium oculis meis Alexander Agricola
9. L’eure est venue Alexander Agricola
10. Je n’ay dueil que de vous Alexander Agricola
11. Musica quid defles - Epitaphion Alexandri Agricolae symphonistae regis Castillae Juan de Anchieta
12. De profundis clamavi Nicolas Champion
13. Nymphes des bois - Déploration sur la mort de Ockeghem Josquin Desprez
14. Cecus non judicat de coloribus, secunda pars Alexander Agricola
About this CD
To complete a triptych of recordings presenting an alternative view of performance practice from across a century of Franco-Flemish polyphony, Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix now turn their attention to music by Alexander Agricola and his contemporaries in Cecus.
Following on from the two earlier albums, Joye and La Magdalene, Cecus concerns itself with music associated with blind players (notably two fiddlers from Bruges) and memory and commemoration (laments on the deaths of Agricola and Johannes Ockeghem) coming from the chapel of Philippe le Beau and Juana of Castile.
Alexander Agricola’s own musical world – and especially Cecus non judicat de coloribus – crosses the border between theory and practice, between flamboyant experience and rational construction and constantly evokes blindness (to see and not to see) in relation to memory and written or improvisated music, but also in connection with those songs of mourning.
Graindelavoix’s new CD for Glossa promises polyphony in sharply-articulated, richly-coloured performances, provided with athletic vocal gestures by Schmelzer and his Antwerp-based ensemble of musicians from Spain, Estonia, the UK, France and Belgium.
For the ensemble Graindelavoix’s fifth recording for Glossa, Cecus, Björn Schmelzer has gathered together musicians from Spain, Estonia, the UK, France and Belgium to complete a triptych of recordings presenting an alternative view of performance practice from across a century of Franco-Flemish polyphony. After Joye and La Magdalene, Cecus focuses on music by Alexander Agricola and his contemporaries and concerns itself with music associated with blind players (notably two fiddlers from Bruges) and memory and commemoration (laments on the deaths of Agricola and Johannes Ockeghem) coming from the chapel of Philippe le Beau and Juana of Castile. [read more...]
“Making these old, broken stones sing is a wonderful experience”
Following Caput and Joye you are now turning to another area of the medieval musical world. What has inspired you to consider 13th-century Brabant?
After trying to show two important 15th-century composers in a different musical light, I thought it would be interesting to do a programme which is more geographical yet at the same time more “virtual”: one based only on musical remnants, traces and ruins. In this way we might try and create the sound world of an entire region: rather than producing portraits one would be able to paint full landscapes of scenes hitherto lost and in need of being invented anew. [read more...]