Graindelavoix

The first in a trilogy of recordings exploring religious, social and political discourses around 13th-century music sees Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix set off on a journey across Europe, reflecting on the medieval working world of the artist Villard de Honnecourt, who was responsible for a collection (still in existence) of drawings made in connection with the new Gothic cathedrals then being built. The travels of Villard took him from Cambrai to Vaucelles and Reims, and then across Germany, Switzerland and Hungary. In this first volume, 'Ossuaires' (ossuaries being receptacles for holy relics), the lines of this journey unite medieval Northern France and Hungary: musical treasures performed here concentrate on an Office for Saint Elizabeth by Pierre de Cambrai and Volek syrolm thudothlon (an example of an early Hungarian poem being set to music from France).

The characteristic and imaginative approach of Björn Schmelzer, along with his Graindelavoix singers, stands back from preconceived notions of how such medieval music may have been sung, and aligns itself instead more with the working practices of artists such as Villard de Honnecourt (examples of the draughtsman’s work are included in the CD booklet), medieval and modern artists embellishing and improvising, combining and recycling their materials from a practical perspective.

Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix have recently embarked on a startling and radical new stage in their career which involves a collaboration with Rosas, the ensemble of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, and which unites the music of the late 14th century Ars subtilior and contemporary dance.

In July 2011 the world première of the production 'Cesena' took place at Avignon in the medieval Cour d’honneur of the Palais des Papes (the performance commencing at 4.30am!), and Graindelavoix has recorded since then a “soundtrack” album for release on Glossa.

The contents of the album mirror the production onstage, and draw on the almost abstract structures, with their complex and fascinating contrapuntal relations, of this early polyphony, much of it deriving from the Codex Chantilly. Through the performances with Rosas, Schmelzer is hoping to gain new insights into performing this repertoire.

As to the meaning of the album’s title, Schmelzer says that 'Cesena' is only a good one if it functions in all different directions at once; whether it refers to an Italian city whose population was slaughtered in the late 14th century, at the time of the Western Schism in the Catholic Church, as both Rome and Avignon struggled for control, or to a very important Franciscan, Michael of Cesena who fought for a church in poverty against all the decadence of power or, indeed, to other ideas....

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 their 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 [The Blind Do Not Distinguish Colours] – crosses the border between theory and practice, between flamboyant experience and rational construction and constantly evokes blindness in relation to memory and written or improvised 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.

Recorded at Saint-Pauluskerk,Antwerp December 2008.

In early 16th-century Catholic Europe the figure of Mary Magdalene was the subject of intense veneration and composers of sacred choral music, and of chansons, were heavily involved in celebrating the saint. Hoever, it appears that the figure of Mary Magdalene then celebrated represented three different women, and following the writing of a controversial treatise by Jacques Lefèvre d'Estaples, the Liège-born musician Nicolas Champion (c.1475-1533) composed a beautiful Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena incorporating a number of different cantus firmi and, apparently, reflecting Lefèvre's thesis. Björn Schmelzer of Graindelavoix has ventured into the complex web here of historical texts, concerned with religion and art history as much as with music, in order to bring forth a wholly compelling performance of the mass (persuasively embellished), related chansons and Parisian plainchant. Although little-known today, Nicolas Champion was a contemporary of composers such as Josquin Desprez, Pierre de la Rue and Alexander Agricola and this recording marks a significant step forward in his modern-day recognition.

Recorded at the Dominican Church of Leuven (Belgium), in January 2008.

Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix's third recording for Glossa features the flourishing economic and cultural environs of 13th-century Brabant: covering the areas of Brussels, Antwerp and the present day Belgian provinces of Vlaams and Walloon Brabant as well as Noord-Brabant in The Netherlands.

An integral part of this new project - uniting three broad groups active in Brabant, mystics, monks and minstrels - is where it was recorded: the Dominican Church in Leuven, where Schmelzer considers much of this music may have been performed. Constructed following the model of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, the church retains an acoustic unchanged by the passing of time and provides a fascinating musical account of an important region in the 13th century, hitherto neglected on record.