201 Crossing the Channel. Music from medieval France and England

201 Frontcover
201 Singers Positions
201 Backcover

18,30 €

incl. 19% VAT

Crossing the Channel. Music from medieval France and England, 10th – 13th century
Ensemble Providencia

  • TACET Real Surround Sound
  • Total playing time (mmm:ss): 61:12
  • 5.1 standard channel order: front left – front right – center – subwoofer (not used) – surround left – surround right
  • 96 kHz, 24 bit. Format: Flac (lossless)
  • Download as zip file. Booklet (English, German, French) and cover images included
  • Size: 2,29 GB
  • Barcode: 4009850020127

 

More productions featuring medieval music: 248 Mare Balticum Vol. II, 261 Mare Balticum Vol. III, 273 Mare Balticum Vol. IV, 270 Voc dilecti mei

Description

Fundamental, archaic melodies – monodic, canonic or written in parallel intervals, melodies seeming to stride forward endlessly, with strange ornaments, full of compositional mysteries – it is nearly impossible to switch off this kind of meditative singing, especially not in one’s head. Their suggestive effect hardly requires any special kind of conceptual formulation. But the Ensemble Providencia of Paris, consisting of Andrea Parias, Sarah Richards, Stéphanie Leclercq and Hanna Järveläinen, wanted to embark on a research expedition. These four set out to investigate the developmental connections in language and music between England and France, “Crossing the Channel,” during the period from the 11th to the 13th century. What an adventure!
The recording was made in Beaulieu sur Dordogne, a small town in southern France, in a beautiful Romanesque church with unique acoustics. It was so quiet there that even the birds, curious about the singing, continued circling round the church for a long time at dusk. They had not heard music like this for an eternity.

“(…) The singing, as has been observed, is extremely good. The recording is also excellent, with plenty of echo but without excess resonance to cloud the crystal clarity of the individual voices. (…)” MusicWeb International

 

Audiosample (mp3, stereo)

Booklet

=> view the booklet

Reviews

  1. sa-cd.net –

    –> original review
    Published here with kind permission of sa-cd.net and John Broggio.

    This disc of chant is hypnotic musically and stunning sonically – one of those times where Tacet just push the boundaries of multi-channel presentation to the benefit of the music.

    As the absolutely first-rate notes from the Ensemble Providencia’s sopranos (Maria Andrea Parias & Sarah Richards) explain, this is a varied collection of the different styles of chant & song that were present on either side of the English Channel in C10-C12. The manuscripts have come from a large number of locations: Bodleian Library (Oxford), Faculte de Medecine (Montpellier), Corpus Christi (Cambridge), Worcester Cathedral, Bibliotheque Municipale (Arras), British Library (London), Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbuttel), Staatsbibliothek (Bamberg), Corpus Christi (Oxford). Despite some of the German locations of the scores, these are works of the (then) Norman empire. What is nice about the construction of the disc musically is the various styles are spread about, making for a nice variety of sonorities as the disc progresses. The sonorities are ably abetted by Ensemble Providencia (also mezzo’s Stephanie Leclercq & Hanna Jarvelainen) whose purity of tone is amply varied to expressive effect.

    Der außergewöhnliche Klang ist jedoch etwas, über das man staunen kann, denn diese Veröffentlichung ist eine weitere ihrer „Tacet Real Surround Sound“-Aufnahmen. Im Laufe der CD werden uns viele Variationen der Platzierung des Ensemble Providencia geboten; einige vorne, einige nur auf einer Seite, eine diagonal, aber am außergewöhnlichsten sind die Tracks „Christus resurgens“ & „Bien deust chanter“, bei denen die Mitglieder um den Hörer herumgehen (vermutlich nicht in Schuhen!) Abgesehen von diesem Aspekt sind auch die reinen klanglichen Überlegungen sehr gut umgesetzt, wobei die Akustik der Abbatiale (Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne) den Klang des Ensembles angenehm unterstützt.

    Recommended
    John Broggio

    Purchase not verified. Find out more

Add a review

Related Products