Search - Edward Wickham, The Clerks' Group, Lucy Ballard :: Machaut: Motets And Music From The Ivrea Codex / Wickham, Clerks' Group

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Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 08/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a superb CD, as one might expect from the Clerks' Group. I looked it up for a friend, to see if it is available. It is, but BE CAREFUL! The MP3 listed here is NOT this performance at all, and the samples are not music by the great 14th Century poet/composer Guillaume de Machaut.



PS - I returned to check the MP3; it's still wrong. However, there is a copy of the CD available, so I should say that this is the very best recording ever made of the motets and mass movements rom the Ivrea Codex, which is the main source of virtually the whole surviving repertoire of vocal polyphony of the 14th Century, aside from the manuscripts Guillaume Machaut prepared with his own hand of his own compositions. The codex is still kept in the treasury of the cathedral of Ivrea, a small place on the route from Italy to France, near the ski resort of Aosta. The Ivrea motets are notoriously difficult to perform effectively, and so are the works of the great Machaut. For one thing, they sound best when sung in Pythagorean tunings. For another, they require a very sure sense of rhythm, especially for the syncopations and hockets. Be pleased, and not fooled, that the Clerks' Group makes it all sound so easy!"