PhilPaine.com

You could not find a bet­ter col­lec­tion of ear­ly French motets than this one: “The Mar­riage of Heav­en and Hell: Motets and Songs from Thir­teenth Cen­tury France” [Hype­r­ion CDA66423], per­formed by the Goth­ic Voic­es, under the direc­tion of Christo­pher Page, who is also the harpist. Most of these motets are anony­mous, but a few are cred­ited to trou­vères: Blondel de Nesle, Col­in Muset, Gau­tier de Dar­gies, and the best known, Bernart de Ven­ta­dorn. How­ever, the motet form trans­forms the feel­ing of the trou­vère songs. They lose their inti­mate qual­ity, and the poet­ry of the lyrics is sub­merged. It’s not real­ly pos­si­ble to fol­low lyrics in a motet, even if you know the lan­guage well. The best you can do is catch a word here and there. Peo­ple didn’t lis­ten to motets for the same rea­son they lis­tened to love bal­lads and hero­ic lais. The motet was a game. It took famil­iar songs and played with them, twist­ing them out of recog­ni­tion. In much the same way, 1950’s “cool” jazz took show tunes and love songs and manip­u­lated them in fash­ions com­pletely at odds with their orig­i­nal intent.