Dufay Se La Face Ay Pale: The Early Music Of London David Munrow Edition

Dufay Se La Face Ay Pale: The Early Music Of London David Munrow Edition

Dufay Se La Face Ay Pale: The Early Music Of London David Munrow Edition
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CD Details

Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 1996-07-16
Music Label: Virgin
Soundtracks:
  1. Gloria Ad Modum Tubae
  2. Chanson 'Se La Face Ay Pale'/Original Three-Part Version/Buxheimer Orgelbuch:Two Keyboard...
  3. Missa 'Se La Face Ay Pale': Kyrie
  4. Missa 'Se La Face Ay Pale': Gloria
  5. Missa 'Se La Face Ay Pale': Credo
  6. Missa 'Se La Face Ay Pale': Sanctus
  7. Missa 'Se La Face Ay Pale': Angus Dei

Music reviews of Dufay Se La Face Ay Pale: The Early Music Of London David Munrow Edition

Music Review: Gorgeous Traditional Approach to Dufay's Se la face ay pale
Rating: 5 Stars

It may well be hard for anyone to find this disc at amazon, as it doesn't show up in the search engine with "David Munrow" or "The Early Music Consort of London" and that's a shame. The bulk of the CD is devoted to Dufay's composition Se la face ay pale" ("If my face is pale")--in the original version as a secular love song; in two different keyboard versions; in a four-part mixed instrumental version; and finally in the parody mass so well known to music historians. This latter piece is a polyphonic five-movement mass in which the theme of the secular song is inserted as a cantus firmus (a melody usually moving in slower note values) around which counterpoints (other melodic lines) are woven. Most listeners will not follow the theme in the mass, or indeed, even be aware of it at all. The only other work on the disc is a short Gloria ad modum tubae--Gloria in the trumpet's mode--that uses the open notes of the trumpet (in this case, performed on sackbut, a precursor of the trombone, not the trumpet) as an ostinato (repeated pattern) around which the voices move freely. Imagine singers with an accompanying bugle and you won't be far off. The Gloria, for all its peculiarity, doesn't fascinate me--personally I'm actually sort of annoyed by it. The other works on the disc are compelling, though, and beautifully performed.

Two main schools of thought contend with one another in the performance of Medieval and Renaissance music. The traditional school sees this music as very pure and does little to enhance the notes provided with ornamentation; there may be some limited instrumental doubling of the lines but its minimal and serves not to color the music as much as to provide a strong pitch foundation for the singers. Percussion is usually omitted altogether; male countertenors are prefered over female altos and sopranos and vocalists strive for a pure tone usually without vibrato. The opposing school seeks to make the music more lively, suggesting that there's much about this music that wasn't notated at all, and so performances can range widely from what we have on the page. In particular, some followers of this approach believe there was a strong Middle Eastern influence via Moorish Spain; they'll add hand drums frequently, and inflect the music with many ornamentations, including microtonal pitch bends. Vibrato is embraced instead of abhored. Female singers are often used--the Allegorie Ensemble's L'Arbre de Mai CD that I recently reviewed is a good example of this approach.

David Munrow, with the Early Music Consort of London, are traditionalists, and excellent traditionalists at that. It's a lovely sound they've created, one in which the purity of sound seems to reflect the purity of religious feeling the words express. Where things are added, particularly instrumentation, the choices are subtle and sophisticated. The idea is to enhance the notes which have come down to us over 600 years, not to replace them. In the Sanctus, for example, the vocalists sometimes sing a cappella, and sometimes with instruments; sometimes the instruments double all the lines, sometimes only a single line--but they never add notes or inflect them; the texture is strictly polyphonic, with no eastern heterophonic influence at all. Changes in texture and timbre reflect changes in text and so seem entirely appropriate. Even though the disc is a scant 45 minutes long--it's a re-issue from the time of vinyl--this interpretation is so lovely it's really worth having.
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