THE SPIRITS OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE—2 • Christopher Page, dir; Gothic Voices • HELIOS 55282 (61:59 Text and Translation)

Music of RICHART DE SEMILLI, GACE BRULÉ, GONTIER DE SOIGNIES, GUIBERT KAUKESEL, GAUTIER DE DARGIES, ADAM DE LA HALLE, ERNOUL LE VIELLE, AUDEFROI LE BASTART, anon

First issued as Hyperion 66773 (19:1), this was one of five discs that surveyed medieval music of the two countries to great advantage, even if the genre here was limited to one country. All these composers are trouvères from northern France, and none of the selections was familiar when the disc was issued, not that anything has changed in the meantime. One selection recorded much earlier by Russell Oberlin had just been reissued then, and it is still the only duplication I can find in a cursory search now. The trouvère repertoire far exceeds the surviving troubadour songs, but the latter are more favored on records. In addition to this disc, there were trouvère collections by Thomas Binkley (CD reissue in 9:2), Sequentia (8:2; CD in 12:2), and Ensemble Venance Fortunat (19:4), the last issued just after the present disc. In bygone days, Adam de la Halle, Thibaut of Champagne, and Chrétien de Troyes had special attention. But no one explained the many forms of songs, the poetic construction, the melodic structure, the trouvère biographies (at least of those represented here), and the interpretive approach nearly as well as Page does here. Reading the booklet is the first thing to do, and only then listen attentively to the record. The contrast among the forms, the alternation between solo voice and accompanied singing, and the inclusion of three pieces played on the fiddle add variety to a program that is already endowed with plenty of it. This is just one more treasure that newer collectors can acquire at bargain prices with the ongoing reissue of Page’s entire output on this label. Watch for more of them, but don’t miss this.

FANFARE: J. F. Weber