You know you’re getting old when you say things like, “I can’t believe it’s been 30 years since. . .” Well, whatever it means, it’s been 30 years since the beginning of the Hilliard Ensemble, the British trio/quartet/quintet/etc. that set the standard and tone (in every sense of the word) for all subsequent early-music small-ensemble vocal groups. This group, with its seamless legatos, impeccably executed phrasing, perfect blend, and beguiling vocal quality always has epitomized ensemble performance, and these singers–five this time–do it again here in a ravishing collection of 18 Machaut motets that at once incorporate the emotions identified with love, longing, passion, rejection, despair, hopelessness, pain, and death. The harmonies, like the thematic material of the texts, are mostly stark and bare and uncomplicated, but then we’re suddenly jolted by some strange and wonderful, unconventional combobulation of notes that reminds us of the poignancy and beauty of human feeling and how music can effectively touch and even describe our emotions. Things get especially interesting in the harmonically spicy “Se j’aim mon loyal ami” (track 12) and following “Bone pastor”, whose “colorful” chords pre-date Gesualdo’s quirky inventions by more than two centuries.
The Hilliards are experts in all aspects of singing, but they also know how to find the soul of a piece, and here they have a field-day with poetry such as “True love, who came to pierce me to the heart, has done me a great wrong…Alas! now may I lament, weep, and make my complaint in abundance while, because I have loved so well, I await my death rather than my reward.” Machaut’s music is as evocative as any ever written and, embodied in these five voices–two countertenors, two tenors, and baritone–it aims straight for the heart as directly and effectively as it appeals to the intellect and aesthetic senses. Although I found 60-plus minutes of this music to be a bit too much of a good thing for one sitting–it calls out for more variety in mood and style–there’s no denying that the performances and interpretive concepts are musically first-rate and musicologically sound. And speaking of sound–it’s ideal, made in the group’s favorite venue, the St. Gerold monastery. [3/29/2004]
