Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame

“The four male voices of the Orlando Consort bring vigour and tonal variety to Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, and its tenor Mark Dobell gives a lilting account of the composer's song Douce dame jolie. Tarik O'Regan's Virelai on the same tune then makes playful, contrapuntal use of its melodies. His Scattered Rhymes, inspired by the Mass, pairs the Consort in medieval English poetry with Paul Hillier's choir in texts by Petrarch: a vivid meditation on earthly and divine love. The Consort's perceptive accounts of Du Fay's Ave Regina celorum and Gavin Bryars's Super flumina complete the picture.” The Telegraph, 10th May 2008

“This collection has been programmed with considerable care. Machaut's glorious Messe de Nostre Dame forms its centre, both in terms of its musical substance and its famously provocative rhythmic and harmonic structure.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2008 *****

“Vocal treats in a meeting of old-fashioned sense and modern sensuality” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame is the earliest known setting of the Ordinary Mass by a single composer. Paul Hillier avoids a full reconstruction on this release: his deference to 'authenticity' restricts itself to the usage of 14th century French pronunciation of the Latin. His ensemble sings two to a part, with prominent countertenors.
It's arguable whether the musicians sing the chant at too fast a tempo but they're smooth and flexible, and the performance as a whole is both fluid and light in texture. Also included on this release are two French compositions. The wonderful Lai 'de la fonteinne' is admirably sung by three tenors and is pure delight – providing food for the heart as well as for the intellect. The rather more familiar Ma fin est mon commencement, with its retrograde canon, completes this admirable disc.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“This is the closest anyone has yet come to recording Machaut's setting as he himself might have heard it; the coupling is a sampling of songs from Le Voir Dit, another intriguingly autobiographical offering.” Early Music America, Winter 2001/Spring 2002

“A splendid Messe de Nostre Dame from an enterprising French ensemble. Diabolus in Musica… like Parrott… intersperse plainchant between the Mass movements, but they also add a few tenor motets… by less well known or anonymous masters. This yields a more satisfying balance between plainsong and polyphony, and it's quite likely that such shorter pieces would have been performed in services at the time. As to the Mass itself, the singing is again superb. Guerber takes a more relaxed view of the general pacing and argument, and to the local shaping of phrases, that Parrott's more driven approach.” Gramophone Magazine, April 2009

“…an impressive performance, with the occasional hint of an Eastern Orthodox tinge, especially in the opening melisma of the Introit, but it does not detract from the overall balance and integrity of the presentation of the Mass. The blend of solemnity with pleasure in the celestial potential of the voices evokes the experience of a late-14th-century service as convincingly as you could reasonably expect.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2005 ****

“This is neither the first recording of Machaut's most famous work to have been made in Rheims Cathedral, where the composer worked, nor the first to present the Mass as part of a 'liturgical reconstruction'. (The first distinction belongs to the Oxford Camerata's recording for Naxos, the second to the Taverner Consort's for EMI.) As a liturgical reconstruction, this is more nearly complete than the Taverner's, to the extent of including the celebrant's sotto voce recitation during the Secret.
The plainchant is especially well managed: the beginnings of the longer chant items are sung by a soloist in a rapt, florid style described fairly precisely by contemporary theorists. And as ever in this type of programme, it is most instructive to experience sacred polyphony unfolding in its natural environment (that is, as a literal outgrowth of chant), rather than as the 'bleeding chunks' in which we so often consume it. The Schola Gregoriana recording is currently alone in offering this opportunity.
That said, the polyphony itself doesn't quite have the polish of other recordings. This is felt particularly in the Gloria and Credo, whose fastmoving 'close harmony' demands a degree of unanimity (both rhythmic and intonational) that these singers do not quite achieve (it's high tenors – as on the Tavener recording – not countertenors who best impart the slightly astringent 'bite' that brings Machaut's dissonances most vividly to life). Whether or not you agree, this stimulating recording is unlikely to be the first choice for the polyphony itself.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010