★Lancaster and Valois★ Lancaster and Valois: the two royal houses that reigned during the periods of English and French music presented on this recording. The English pieces by Pycard 5, Sturgeon bm, Fonteyns bo and the composer of an anonymous Sanctus bn, have been taken from the Old Hall manuscript, the celebrated collection of English liturgical polyphony that was probably compiled for use in the chapel of Thomas, Duke of Clarence. The French pieces include four by Guillaume de Machaut 1 6 9 bl, whose musical and literary works attracted the attention of some of the highest in France during the fourteenth century. This recording opens with his flamboyant ballade Donnez, signeurs 1, a call to the magnates of France to show largesse in accordance with their exalted dignity. Of the other composers featured here, Solage 4 composed one piece in honour of Jean, Duke of Berry and another (Le mont aon, not attributed to him in the sources) in praise of Gaston Phebus, Count of Foix and Bearn. Cesaris bp br, whose music was much admired in Parisian circles during the early fifteenth century, served the Dukes of Berry and Anjou, while Baude Cordier bq served the Valois Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy as a valet de chambre in the 1390s (if he is to be identified with the harpist Baude Fresnel, which some are inclined to doubt). ★The English Pieces★ As yet there is remarkably little evidence that polyphonic rondeaux, virelais and ballades of the kind composed in France were much appreciated in England. Consequently, the English pieces on this recording are all either Mass compositions or devotional works with Latin texts. The anonymous Sanctus bn can claim to represent a strong fourteenth-century tradition in English Mass music: sonorous and highly succesful within certain bounds. Each voice declaims the same words at the same moment which enhances the sonorousness of the piece by synchronizing the vowels. The Marian Regali ex progenie bo by Fonteyns represents a slightly more laborated version of this same technique, and one which even the Old Hall composers of the front rank (such as Power) continued to cultivate. In contrast, the isorhythmic motet by Sturgeon, Salve mater Domini/Salve templum gracie bm, comes from the youngest layer of the Old Hall repertoire and has a strong claim to represent one kind of English music that impressed continental musicians in the earlier fifteenth century. By far the most impressive of the English pieces—and perhaps the most impressive piece on this recording—is the four-part Credo by Pycard 5. This composer is possibly to be identified with a singer of that name who was a clerk in the chapel of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, around 1390 and perhaps still there in 1399. This piece, which is vast by medieval standards (for it runs to some six minutes of throug hcomposed polyphony in four parts) places Pycard into the front rank of European composers between the 1380 and 1420; taken together with his other works (such as the five-part Gloria recorded by Gothic Voices on The Service of Venus and Mars, Hyperion CDS44251/3) they show him to be perhaps the most talented composer on the European scene during those forty years. He outclasses the much more famous Ciconia, whose Mass music is of limited interest for the most part, and what Ciconia has in his best motets—a rhythmic energy, a love of short melodic phrases that chase one another in the upper voices in a most exhilarating way—Pycard also has. (Indeed, there is much in Pycard’s music that one might wish to trace to Italian example.) Pycard brings to these things a love of full, triadic sonority that is alien to Ciconia and distinctively English. ★The French Pieces of the fifteenth century★ Baude Cordier’s Ce jour de l’an bq represents a category of piece—the New Year song—that seems to have sprung into existence around 1400 and which is undoubtedly connected with the giving of New Year presents (a ceremony lavishly described in an English context in the Middle English romance of Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight). The tone of such festivities would seem to have suited the new mood of the French chanson after 1400, lighter and fresher. Cesaris was one of the composers who, according to Martin le Franc, enjoyed great success in Parisian circles and whose music was fashionable before the advent of Guillaume Dufay and Binchois. His rondeau Se vous scaviez, ma tres douce maistresse br is a fine example of early fifteenth-century song style: a relatively plain, compact and memorable melody is set over a Tenor and Contratenor that create dissonance in a highly controlled fashion. (Sheer tunefulness, in a form that modern listeners can often instantly recognize, is a priority with early fifteenth-century French composers.) His double rondeau Mon seul voloir/ Certes m’amour bp, a ravishing piece, has all the same qualities and there is no difficulty in understanding how such a piece might have ‘astonished all Paris’ in the words of Martin le Franc. CHRISTOPHER PAGE © 1992