‘A very fine recording that serves more importantly to enhance Machaut’s genius in these sympathetic and often beautiful accounts.’ Gramophone

Guillaume de Machaut is the first “famous” composer in western musical history. In his time, the Middle Ages, most composers delivered their works anonymously (as part of their clerical duties), but Machaut was considered such a master of his creative art that he presented his works under his own name. He was in service of the highest monarchs, among whom Charles V, King of France.

Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” is the first polyphonic Mass written, a complicated structure full of ingenious compositorial techniques. But even without the theoretical knowledge we are still spellbound by the haunting beauty and mystery of this masterpiece.

The CD-ROM includes essays by Dominique Vellard on all the music, plus sung texts (CD- ROM translations in modern French, English, German and Spanish).

The Mass and songs by Guillaume de Machaut are probably the earliest consistent body of work attributable to a single composer in the Western canon. As such, they form a foundation stone to centuries of both melody-oriented song and contrapuntal polyphony that come thereafter. They have their own rich recording history, too, from the gentle and sometimes pedestrian efforts of pioneering groups like Pro Musica Antiqua and the New York Pro Musica, through to the dynamic and swinging recordings of the Orlando Consort. The Ensemble Gilles Binchois is (as its name suggests) steeped in an idiom that requires a deal of research as well as vocal skill to master. So thorough a survey of Machaut’s output is almost unrivalled in the current catalogue.