Jehan de Lescurel

Fontaine de grace

Jehan de Lescurel: Ballades, virelais et rondeaux
Ensemble Gilles Binchois - Dominique Vellard
Virgin Veritas 45066

Contents:

1. Rondeau: A vous, douce debonnaire (3 voices)
2. Ballade: Fi mesdisans esragié (recorder, 2 vielles, harp, gittern)
3. Virelai: Dame, vo regars (voice, gittern)
4. Ballade: Bontés, sen, valours et pris (voice)
5. Ballade: Amours, trop vous doi cherir (voice, recorder, vielle, gittern)
6. Rondeau: Bonnement m'agrée (3 voices, percussion)
7. Ballade: Abundance de felonnie (bagpipes, 2 vielles, percussion)
8. Virelai: Dis tans plus (voice, recorder, percussion)
9. Rondeau: Biétris est mes delis (2 voices, vielle)
10. Rondeau: Dame, par vo dous regart (voice, vielle)
11. Ballade: D'amour qui n'est bien celée (voice, rebec)
12. Virelai: Douce Amour, confortez moi (voice)
13. Ballade: Belle, com loiaus amans (recorder, 2 vielles, harp, gittern)
14. Rondeau: A vous, douce debonnaire (voice)
15. Ballade: Bonne Amour me rent (voice)
16. Rondeau: De gracieuse dame amer (voice, harp, gittern)
17. Ballade: Amours, que vous ai meffait (voice, gittern, percussion)
18. Ballade: Comment que, pour l'eloignance (voice, recorder, vielle, gittern, percussion)
19. Ballade: Amours, trop vous doi cherir (shawm, bagpipes)
20. Virelai: Gracïeusette (voice, recorder, vielle, percussion)

Performers: Anne-Marie Lablaude (soprano), Brigitte Lesne (mezzo-soprano, harp, percussion), Lena-Susanne Norin (mezzo-soprano), Dominique Vellard (tenor, gittern), Emmanuel Bonnardot (baritone, vielle, rebec), Pierre Hamon (recorders, bagpipes, percussion), Randall Cook (vielle, shawm)

Playing time: 68'

Recording date: September 1991

Excerpts:
[12], [20] Virgin Classics 0946 356902 2 4 [CD] Music from the time of the Crusades (1096 - 1270).

Note: This CD was later re-issued as a 2 CDs box (Virgin "Veritas" VMD 5 61 640 2 Millenium - Music from the Middle Ages) with Virgin "Veritas" 7243 5 45135 2 7 Les premieres polyphonies françaises

Jehan de Lescurel (d. 1304) was an innovative composer who died young (hanged as a thief, despite being a scholar and clerk at Notre Dame). Technically, he was one of the last of the trouvères and wrote only a single polyphonic work (the opening track; track #6 is performed with alternating voices, while track #9 is performed with a chorus refrain), despite the fact that his melodies are pregnant with such possibilities. Track #14 is a monophonic version of the opening polyphonic rondeau.

In some aspects, his compositions anticipate de Vitry who was apparently a somewhat younger contemporary, if Lescurel's young age is to be believed.

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