Le Miroir de Musique & Baptiste Romain – In seculum viellatoris: The Medieval Vielle (2018) [FLAC 24bit/88,2kHz]

Baptiste Romain, director of the ensemble Le Miroir de Musique, has just been appointed professor at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. To mark this occasion, he enriches the Instruments series on the Ricercar label with a recital devoted to the medieval vielle (bowed fiddle):troubadour songs and dances and polyphonic compositions from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries illustrate the various stages in the evolution of this instrument, the ancestor of the violin.

Do not confuse the medieval vielle, which is played with a bow, with the vielle à roue, or hurdy-gurdy, whose strings are plucked by a wheel which is turned with a crank. The vielle is one of the older instruments, and it is typical of the Middle Ages. Larger models are similar in size to the modern viola, and it is related to a smaller instrument which would generally become known as a rebec at the end of the 14th century. The broad and generic meaning of the word vielle (or viola, in Occitan) was drawn out by the arrival of more specific terms like gigue (from the German-speaking world), rebebe (from the Arabic rebab) or crwth or rotte (from the Celtic fringe). The vielle is characterised by a flat casing, oval or oblong in shape, sometimes cut fairly low laterally, with a variable number of strings. In other words, there were many different versions of this generic instrument, and on this album we find it in many different shapes, sizes and regional origins. He leaves it to the listener to form their own view of the many different sounds, which vary so widely from each piece to the next; and whose manuscripts vary so widely in terms of their origins: Germany, Italy, Flanders, Occitania, and Celtic regions. The majority of these pieces are anonymous, but we can still identify Perdigon, the Ardechois troubadour from the early 13th century; the Flemish Johannes Ciconia (1370-1412) and the famous Burgundian Guillaume Dufay, who needs no introduction. The Miroir de Musique ensemble, led by Baptiste Romain, specialises in the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; their members sing and play many different forms of vielle, harp, percussion instruments and the bagpipes!

Tracklist:
01. Ar ne kuthe ich sorghe non
02. Los mals d’amors ai eu ben toz apres
03. Bele Ysabelot / Je me cuidoie / Entre Copin et Bourjois
04. Tut l’an mi ten amors de tal faisson
05. La uitime estampie Real
06. In seculum viellatoris
07. Belicha
08. Non credo, donna, che la dolçe fiamma
09. Ghaetta
10. O bella rosa
11. O rosa bella
12. Tenor La belle se siet au pied de la tour
13. La belle se siet au pié de la tour
14. Esperance mi fait vivre en doulour
15. J’aime la biauté
16. Soyés loyal a vo povoir