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Classical music explodes on CD in the '90s

A curious thing happened a couple of years ago in the classical music world: A millennium of music suddenly became popular again. The recent resurgence of popular interest in early music (which can be roughly defined as anything written between the first notated music and the Renaissance) may have started with "Chant," a mediocre collection of Gregorian chant. At the same time, however, other artists and scholars had been quietly producing fantastically well researched and performed recordings of works from the same era, and they soon found unexpected success.

While there are now many excellent recordings of early music material available, the listener often finds themselves in a position not unlike that of people who are new to classical music: They've heard a few things they like and are interested in learning more, but aren't sure where to begin. The independent classical music label Harmonia Mundi France's answer to this problem is "Les Trés Riches Heures Du Moyen Age: A Medieval Journey," a six compact disc set containing nearly eight hours of music spanning the entire early music era. (The title translates to "The Very Rich Times of the Middle Ages.")

In addition, the set contains extensive liner notes that discuss the historical place and significance of the works presented. Running more than 100 pages, they include the lyrics (with translations) of some, but not all of the pieces performed. Unfortunately, it is printed in very small type to accommodate three language translations, and I also wish it gave more attention to the spiritual significance of the music and its impact on the people of the time, rather than just musical lineage and church and court politics. The text is fairly thick with musical terminology and foreign words and, while readable with some effort, there are probably better introductions to much of this music. Its strength, however, is its close link with the material on the CDs.

The set begins with "The Dawn of the Christian Era," an assortment of entirely vocal music -- instruments being reserved for pagan festivals and the theater. The disc begins with examples of fourth century Byzantine and Melchite chant, two forms originating in the Near East. The Arabic musical influence is quite strong here. After the seat of Christianity moved from Jerusalem to Rome, musical forms in the church, too, began to take on a distinctly western European character.

Before the Papacy felt the need to restore Christian music to a unified whole, five separate "churches" (musical dialects) existed. The remainder of the first disc gives examples of four of them: Ambrosian plain-chant from the Milanese church, Beneventan chant, chants from the Church of Rome, and Mozarbic chant.

The fifth "church," Gallican chant, is saved for disc two, "The Reign of Gregorian Chant," as it seems to have been the foundation for the latter. After its introduction, we move on to what is probably the most famous branch of early music. Named after Pope Gregory the Great, this form in reality owes more to the Carolingians, who did most of the unification of the church repertory.

All Masses in the Gregorian style include a collection of texts called the "Ordinary," and a full translation is included in the liner notes. Another section called the "Proper" could vary according to the feast day. These texts are sung by a large choir in unison, i.e. all members sing the same notes at the same time. Disc 2 contains the full "Mass for the Dead," or "Requiem," which includes both sections in their entirety. It concludes with an example of "impure" Gregorian chant which include tropes and sequences, essentially non-Gregorian text patterns.

Disc 3, "The Age of Courtly Love," features music which, while contemporaneous with the end of the era of Gregorian chant, is a world apart stylistically. The music here has instrumental accompaniment, fixed meter, and is largely secular. It's music that makes you want to get up and dance. We begin with five songs of the Troubadours, singer-poets who came from every social class. It's a good overview, but I found Sequentia's recent collection of Troubadour songs a little more musically compelling.

Then we hear the "Cantigas de Santa Maria," commissioned by King Alfonso the Wise of Spain, one of the best-documented musical works of the era. Rounding out the disc is the "Carmina Burana" (the original one, from which Carl Orff drew his much more recent work) and the "Minnesänger," a similarly bawdy musical tale.

We take another musical leap with Disc 4, "The Birth of Polyphony." Returning to church music, we hear, for the first time in the western tradition, the use of intervals, chords, and harmonies. Many examples of polyphonic styles are given, most of them French. The disc evolves chronologically, beginning with simple interval harmonies and moving on to more complex melodic intermingling, such as contrary motion. This disc is also the first to feature Anonymous 4, four women who, in addition to being extraordinary singers, research and translate much of the music they sing.

The Ars Nova, the musical avant-garde of the 14th century, was seen by Pope John XXII as an attack on sacred music. Indeed, it did secularize this music to some extent. Disc 5, "Ars Nova and the 14th Century," begins, appropriately enough, with extracts from "Le Roman de Fauvel," a satire on the wretched conditions at the courts of the French king and at the Papal court in Avignon. As with a couple of the tracks on Disc three, there is a lot of unaccompanied talking here, and those of us who are not fluent in ancient French may find these tracks less than enthralling.

Following this are excerpts from the "Messe de Tournai," an example of the influence of the influence of the Ars Nova on sacred music, and a collection of secular songs from France by Guillaume de Machaut, the most famous composer of the time, and Italy. The disc concludes with sacred music from 14th century England, beginning with a track which is the most rhythmically interesting church music on the set so far.

Finally, we move on to the 15th century with Disc 6, "The Dawn of the Renaissance." With the exception of a single track on disc three, this is the first disc to include music without vocals. We are moving, here, into an age that includes music that exists not to tell stories or pronounce faith, but for its own sake. The disc alternates between sacred choral music and instrumental music for viols and lute.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the most comprehensive introduction to early music in existence. If you're interested enough to spend the money, you really can't go wrong here. It's worth noting, however, that "Les Trés Riches Heures Du Moyen Age" covers a musical era three times longer than what we generally think of as "classical music" -- the period from the Baroque to the present -- and even a six CD set is going to have quite a few omissions. The most serious one here is the complete lack of any music directly attributable to female composers -- though there are a large number of anonymous works. For those interested, a decent introduction to early music by women can be found on the World Wide Web at http://pages.nyu.edu/~whitwrth/.

I was also surprised that many of the most famous composers of the era did not make the set. For example, there are no works by Hildegard of Bingen, Josquin des Prez, or Palestrina. I sense a slight bias toward French composers which may explain these omissions. I don't mean to deride the music which is included, however; the set is a treasure trove for anyone interested enough to explore it.