Gautier de Coincy’s Les Miracles de Nostre Dame is an extraordinary 13th-century collection of songs, prayers, verse-sermons, and stories that recount miracles associated with the Virgin Mary–translated from Latin sources and reset into French verse and joined with various combinations of original music and trouvère love songs. Gautier was a master of language and equally adept at recasting and rearranging secular popular music to convey his religious messages. The manuscript is certainly of importance equal to the later and now better-known, oft-recorded Cantigas de Santa Maria (whose texts and music contain many direct references to Gautier’s Miracles), but we’ve had to wait until now for such a beautiful presentation of this music, so ardently expressive, drenched in atmosphere, and charged with the rhythms and vocal and instrumental colors that only come from informed stylistic premise.
The program is divided into topical sections–Amours, Ma Viele, Chançonetes, Conductus, Royne Celestre–and alternates between vocal and purely instrumental selections. Besides the clear, resonant beauty of the voices, the strength of these performances lies in the multitude of colors created by the various voice/instrument combinations and in the fascinating improvisational passages. Even if we don’t understand the poetry or the contextual settings, the sheer rhythmic energy and strong melodic character of the music carries us along–just as it was intended by its original author/composer. Highlights include the lively little motet Hyer matin and the monumental Ja pour yver, a huge (13-plus minutes) and powerful masterpiece that will impress both advocates and those who’ve never previously been drawn to early vocal music.
Although we’ve heard authoritative traversals of trouvère repertoire from Martin Best (Nimbus) and Gothic Voices (Hyperion), Andrew Lawrence-King and his fellow musicians seem to have an equal or better knowledge of just how to treat the often sketchy or ambiguous information found in these early manuscripts, and even if we can’t name every sound, we just can’t resist the vielle, bagpipes, shawm, cornetto, psaltery, organetto, or whatever else passes across our ears, because it not only seems historically right but musically and sensuously “correct”–just as it was originally intended. Don’t miss this landmark production, ideally recorded and documented with excellent, easily accessible notes.
