Continens Paradisi - Le Champion des Dames: Chansons de Gilles Binchois and Guillaume Dufay (2003)

The idea behind this disc is that Martin le Franc, one of the great poets and intellectuals of the middle years of the fifteenth century, has ridden into the court of Burgundy -- one of the better appointed of European kingdoms in the later Middle Ages -- to declaim, promote, and, hopefully, make some money off of his celebrated "Le Champion des Dames." An elaborate poetic defense of the fairer sex, le Franc's "Le Champion des Dames" attracted the attention not only of all literate Medieval Europe through its idealized portrait of love, but also the attention of the two greatest Franco-Flemish composers of the time: Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois. This disc intends to re-create an imaginary recital in that le Franc would utter his ornate love poems alternating with performances of songs by Dufay and Binchois on the same subject. As realized by the Continens Paradisi with speaker Olivier Bettens, the result could not be more appealing. Speaker, singers, and players all perform with compelling expression, complete conviction, and consummate virtuosity. Listeners for whom spoken French is merely a sequence of beautiful but incomprehensible sounds might find themselves skipping Bettens' readings after a few hearings. But the performances of Continens Paradisi, an early music ensemble of international, indeed, intercontinental origins, are so wonderfully evocative and marvelously affective that no listener who loves early music could fail to enjoy this disc. Ricercar's sound is intimate and immediate.