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.

Other recordings devoted to Lescurel:

The Love Songs of Jehan de Lescurel
Ensemble Céladon - Paulin Bündgen
Ricercar 366
Songé .I. Songe
Jehan de Lescurel: Chansons et Dit enté, XIVe siècle
Ensemble Syntagma - Alexandre Danilevski
Edition Facsimile "Chrestomathie" FME-1401 [CD+book]
Anges ou démons
Ensemble Amadis
DBA Productions 01/09204

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Todd M. McComb