Trouvères
Courtly Love Songs from Northern France ca. 1175-1300
Chansons, Motets, Chansons de Toile, Estampie, Jeu-Parti, Rondeaux

2 CDs (total times 70:27 and 63:33)

Recorded December 1982 and April/May 1983 in the St. Petruskirche, Blansingen (D)

Released 1984 as 3 LPs by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi

Re-edited and re-issued 1987 as 2 CDs by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Classics (RD77155), in co-production with WDR Köln

Booklet 93 pp.  

There is a story behind this recording: originally, Sequentia’s first LP was to have been a programme called ‘Tradition and Avant-Garde in the 13th Century’, and in fact the recording was made in 1980 but never released due to the ensemble’s dissatisfaction with the edited tapes. Our next programme, ‘Spielmann und Kleriker’, became the first Sequentia release instead. Years later, when we again proposed the project, our work with trouvères had expanded to include composers such as Adam de la Halle, Jehan Lescurel and the motets of Petrus de Cruce, so that a plan was made to release a 3-LP set devoted to the wide spectrum of courtly and urban poet-composers spanning 125 years. When the transfer was made from 3 LPs to 2 CDs, we were forced to cut ca. 20 minutes of music from the production. Bagby, Thornton and Tindemans were joined for these recordings by fiddler Wendy Gillespie and vocalists Jill Feldman, Guillemett Laurens, Candace Smith and Josep Benet.