Nicolas Champion

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.

A re-creation of Rembrandt’s musical world from the correspondence of his patron and friend Constantijn Huygens, the composer, diplomat and poet. This collection of domestic songs and music for virginals, and organ music from the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam was prepared for the Rembrandt’s Women exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.