Ensemble Discantus / Brigitte Lesne UNIVERSI POPULI

This is rare and rarified music of great beauty and regional historical significance. It represents the beginning of a collaboration between the label, Zig-Zag Territoires, and the early music group, Discantus with its director, Brigitte Lesne. It reflects the work of a substantial new research project lead by musicologist Marie-Noël Colette under the auspices of the Institut Français de Prague and the Sablé Festival. The project has unearthed new antiphoners, processionals and tropers from St George's Basilica in Prague that date from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. It is these which are performed with great style, enthusiasm and sophistication on this excellent (though somewhat hard to track down) CD: persevering in obtaining a copy is worth it; it's lovely music and expertly sung.

After these new chants (nova cantica) emerged – along with early motets – in Aquitaine in the twelfth century, Bohemia, interestingly enough, was among the first lands to adopt their usage. This is explained by the stay Machaut made in Prague in the fourteenth century. Indeed what we hear on Universi Populi is testament to a fairly widespread, though perhaps unrecognized, 'cultural exchange' across Europe in the late middle ages: contact between sovereigns; the Crusades; the reforms of Gregory VII; and substantial migration of farmers and merchants explain this. Perhaps as a result, this music is more florid, more luxuriant and in some ways richer to the modern ear than that of Machaut. More like the world of Hildegard. Indeed, more cosmopolitan, extrovert. It is remarkable that the earliest liturgical manuscript from St Vitus' (he of the dance) cathedral in Prague contains twelfth century chants of the Ordinary (Sanctus) which were written in the Limousin and known to have been circulating outside Prague only in France and Catalonia.

This CD uses representative music to trace the developments in the Bohemian liturgy from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries; most significant was the continuity which obtained once the initial impact of the new chants had been felt: works in honor of Virgin Mary and two patron saints, Ludmilla and Wenceslas, who were responsible for important innovations in Bohemian worship.

There is, though, no sense of the performances on this CD being cultish. Nor are they dry. Discantus (between five and ten women depending on what's right for each piece) presents the music as fresh, but not novel; exciting, but not histrionic; and devotional but not excluding. There is the same kind of ecstasy (in Castus mente corpore/Preclaris, for example) as one expects from Hildegard. But the singing is a trifle more subdued, and appropriately so. If you enjoy early a cappella singing (though minimum tuned percussion is used in places) performed to a high standard, a very high standard, and of considerable historical significance, then you should certainly look into this CD. Its booklet is clear and informative, written mainly by Colette; and you get the full texts. The recording itself is excellent, having been made in the beautiful twelfth century Cistercian Abbaye de Sylvanès between Montpellier and Toulouse. It's not a collection obviously devised to convey holiness or accentuate the innovation (or conservatism) of any one composer; nor really to act as exemplum for the local musical changes described. Yes, it's of its own kind. But the delivery by Discantus was clearly designed – and equally clearly emerges – as a delightful, flowing recital. Recommended. (Mark Sealey / Classical Net)

Discantus / Brigitte Lesne VON BINGEN Hortus Deliciarum

‘Hortus deliciarum’ is truly a garden of delights, a recital of mainly 12th-century pieces, planned by Marie-Noël Colette and Brigitte Lesne and performed unaccompanied by Discantus. Some of the pieces come from a transcription made in 1818 of Herrad of Landsberg’s wonderful manuscript of that name, sadly destroyed in 1870. Others come from various manuscript sources, including Hildegard von Bingen’s Symphonia Harmoniœ cœlestium revelationum. 

The programme revolves chiefly around the Christmas season, with Mary the Mother of Jesus as the central figure. It begins with five stanzas from Sedulius’s wonderful alphabetical poem, A solis ortus cardine, starting at the letter E, ‘Enixa est puerperal’. We hear a few examples of traditional chants, including pieces of the Proper: the gradual Dilexisti, from the Common of Virgins, and the Offertory Offerentur regi virgines in a particularly beautiful and highly ornamental version. The singers have their own way of interpreting the rhythm of the early notation, and the overall impression of constant flow which they achieve is impressive. Other pieces include several troped items from the Ordinary.

The unison singing is quite remarkable for its clarity and smoothness. The singers have discovered, too, how to manage repercussions, subtly but entirely convincingly. The ordering of the recital, with its frequent use of First Mode pieces juxtaposed, and its judicious groupings, is successful and never monotonous. The listener is left with a good sense of how sacred music was developing in the 12th century by leaps and bounds in so many directions, even to the extent of cantillated readings being occasionally sung in three parts. (Gramophone)

Discantus SANTA MARIA

Discantus is women vocal ensemble that brings alive the vocal repertoire, primarily sacred, of the Middle Ages from the first Western musical notation of the 9 th century up to the 15 th century.

Founded in 1989 under the direction of Brigitte Lesne, it brings together passionate singers from diverse backgrounds capable of adopting a vocal style appropriate to the medieval repertoire, uniting unique individual timbres to form a coherent e nsemble sound. Since the 2000’s, Discantus’ handbells became like the "signature" of the ensemble.

Invited to the most prestigious festivals, Discantus performs regularly in France, in Western, Central and Eastern Europe (Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hung ary, Poland) and as far as Fes in Morocco, Beyrouth in Lebanon, New York, Perth, and also in Colombia. The 13th recording, "the Argument of Beauty" (sacred polyphonies by Gilles Binchois, at æon recordings) was rewarded as 2010 best recordings of the year by Le Monde newspaper. In 2014, « Music for a King » - also by æon – alternates 11th century repertoire with two pieces commissioned to young composers using texts of Boethius. Discantus keeps enlarging it's repertoire with two new programs incorporating typical medieval stringed instruments ( harp, hurdy - gurdy , psaltery, fiddle) played by the singers themselves: "A path to the field of stars, pligrim's songs" and "Santa Maria, At the court of Alfonso el Sabio".