Graindelavoix, Björn Schmelzer - Cecus. Colours, blindness, memorial (Agricola & his time) (2011)

To complete a triptych of recordings presenting an alternative view of performance practice from across a century of Franco-Flemish polyphony, Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix now turn their attention to music by Alexander Agricola and his contemporaries in Cecus.

Following on from the two earlier albums, Joye and La Magdalene, Cecus concerns itself with music associated with blind players (notably two fiddlers from Bruges) and memory and commemoration (laments on the deaths of Agricola and Johannes Ockeghem) coming from the chapel of Philippe le Beau and Juana of Castile.

Alexander Agricola’s own musical world – and especially Cecus non judicat de coloribus – crosses the border between theory and practice, between flamboyant experience and rational construction and constantly evokes blindness (to see and not to see) in relation to memory and written or improvisated music, but also in connection with those songs of mourning.

Graindelavoix’s new CD for Glossa promises polyphony in sharply-articulated, richly-coloured performances, provided with athletic vocal gestures by Schmelzer and his Antwerp-based ensemble of musicians from Spain, Estonia, the UK, France and Belgium.