Dufay / Diabolus In Musica / Guerber - Missa Se la Face Ay Pale - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Guillaume de Machaut was born around 1300 in the environs of Reims, which at that time was a flourishing royal city with a population of almost 20,000, famous throughout Europe for it's textile workshops and trade fairs. Like most cathedrals of Western Europe, Reims is built on the site of an earlier edifice. The Rouelle altar, on the left in the nave, adjacent to the choir screen, was dedicated to the Holy Spirit. But in 1343 a magnificent statue of the Virgin Mary was placed there. In 1341 Archbishop Jean de Vienne established a plainchant Votive Mass for the Virgin, to be performed each week before the Rouelle altar. The Marian Mass was introduced by Guillaume de Machaut and his younger brother Jean as a perpetuation of the archbishop's wish, and it was for that particular liturgy, which was sung every Saturday throughout the year, that Guillaume wrote his famous polyphonic mass. The Messe de Nostre Dame, as it is called in only one of the five surviving manuscripts, is the first complete preserved polyphonic mass known to be by a single hand. It includes the five movements of the Ordinary plus the four-voice Ite missa est. The Mass is not strictly speaking a unified cycle, but there is nevertheless great coherence in it's rhythmic and harmonic languages. The succession of movements shows a broad construction and a harmonious and carefully established stylistic progression, from the Kyrie with it's strong harmonic structure to the Agnus Dei with it's melodic lyricism.

Like many of his contemporaries, Guillaume Dufay was greatly devoted to the Virgin Mary. His Marian works comprise liturgical pieces sung during the Mass or the Office, but also religious motets written to new poems. It was probably during his first period in the chapel of the dukes of Savoy that Dufay produced a complete cycle of polyphonic hymns for the Office of Vespers of the principal feasts. Their interpretation obeys the principle of alternatim chant, that is to say alternation between monophonic odd-numbered verses, sung in plainchant, and even-numbered polyphonic verses. Dufay employs here the techniques of composition already in use in the fourteenth century. The liturgical melody is sung in the highest voice but appears transformed according to the principles of paraphrase the composer's inventive contribution, in this context, resides in the flexibility of the mensuration (often ternary) and the grace of his ornamentation. The other two, lower voices accompany it in a virtually homophonic style. The influence of the improvisatory practice known as 'fauxbourdon' is manifest. In it's simple form, the melody of the cantus is doubled by the tenor and the contratenor, respectively a sixth and a fourth lower. The result is a succession of highly characteristic chords, interrupted only for the cadences. Album Tracks 1. Salve Flos Tusce Gentis 2. Urbs Beata Jerusalem 3. Flos Florum 4. Ave Regina Caelorum (Plainchant) 5. Ave Regina Caelorum 6. Ave Regina Reparatrix (Anonymous) 7. Imperatrix Angelorum 8. Ave Maris Stella 9. Inclita Stella Maris 10. Anima Mea Liquefacta Est 11. Jesu Corona Virginum 12. Ave Virgo 13. Gaude Virgo Mater Christi

Album Tracks 1. Introitus-Gaudeamus Omnes in Domino 2. Kyrie 3. Gloria 4. Graduale Propter Veritatem 5. Credo 6. Offertorium Assumpta Est Maria 7. Sanctus 8. Benedictus 9. Communio Optimum Partem 10. Agnus Dei 11. Kyrie 12. Gloria 13. Credo 14. Sanctus 15. Benedictus 16. Agnus Dei I - Agnus Dei II