CONFRÉRIES Devotional songs by Jaikes de Cambrai
Villard de Honnecourt: Métier, memories and travels of a 13th-century cathedral buildervol. 2
GCD P32108
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Graindelavoix Björn Schmelzer, direction
Olalla Alemán, Silvie Moors, Patrizia Hardt, Eurudike De Beul, voices Marius Peterson, Paul De Troyer, Lieven Gouwy, Yves Van Handenhove, Björn Schmelzer, Thomas Vanlede, Tomàs Maxé, voicesThomas Baeté, fiddle Jan Van Outryve, guiterne & percussion Floris De Rycker, lute
Production details
Total playing time 63:49 Recorded at Saint-Yved, Braine, France, in July and August 2010 Engineered and produced by Manuel Mohino Executive producer: Carlos Céster Booklet essay by Björn Schmelzer and Mark WigginsBooklet in English - Français - Deutsch
Links & downloads
Extended introduction to the project (PDF)
Commercial release sheet (PDF)
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CONFRÉRIESDevotional songs by Jaikes de Cambrai
Jaikes de Cambrai 01 Grant talent ai k’a chanteir me retraie 02 Haute dame, come rose et lis 03 Kant je plus pens a commencier chanson 04 Loeir m’estuet la roïne Marie 05 Meire, douce creature 06 O Dame, ke Deu portais 07 Retrowange novelle
Robert de Reins La Chièvre 08 Jamais, por tant com l’ame el cors me bate 09 Plaindre m’estuet de la bele en chantant 10 L’autrier dejouste une rivage
Martin le Béguin de Cambrai 11 Loiaus desir et pensee jolie 12 Boine aventure ait ma dame et bon jour
Chanoine de Saint-Quentin 13 Rose ne flor, chant d’oiseaus ni verdure
Anonymous 14 Chanter m’estuet de la virge Marie
About this CD
For the second instalment in their trilogy of recordings for Glossa devoted to performing 13th-century music through the prisms of religious, social and political discourses and with the working practices of cathedral builder Villard de Honnecourt at its centre, Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix demonstrate how music was reflecting the changing social environment of the times, notably through the new confraternities – the confréries – in Northern France.
As a cornerstone of his argument Schmelzer presents a seven-sectioned devotional cycle by the trouvère Jaikes de Cambrai, which the Belgian director likens to contemporary art installations and which he views as reflecting similar working practices discernible in Villard’s carnet (or portfolio). Schmelzer emphasizes the unity of Jaikes’s cycle when performed in a certain order, calling him ‘a dramaturge who connects words, emotional responses and music in a completely new way’.
Further medieval trouvère songs of almost equal modern-day anonymity for contemporary ears (including names such as Robert de Reins La Chièvre, Martin le Beguin de Cambrai and the Chanoine de Saint-Quentin) add to this depiction of Gothic art, suitably recorded in Braine in the Picardy region. This is a musical (and interpretative) territory which the singers and instrumentalists of Graindelavoix have made their own in recent years, delivering fragments of medieval music with new colours and fresh intuition.