Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361)
Motets and Chansons

CD (total time 67:55)

Recorded March & April 1988 in the church of St. Germanus, Seewen (CH)

Released 1991 by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Classics (RD 77095), in co-production with WDR Köln

Booklet 43 pp.

 

The learned musician, theorist, composer and bishop Philippe de Vitry is the figure we most identify with the term ars nova (‘the new art’), the new music of the early 14th century. His name is also associated with the brilliant and complex multi-media work ‘le Roman de Fauvel’, a vast French poem with Latin & French musical inserts which tells a story of corruption in high places. For this recording, Sequentia has gathered 13 three-voice motets of Philippe, together with monophonic songs and instrumental intabulations, all of them from the world of Philippe’s early 14th century Paris. Bagby & Thornton are joined by fiddler Patricia Neely and 5 male voices.