The Hilliard Ensemble GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT: MOTETS (ECM)

Guillaume de Machaut (circa 1300-1377) was one of the outstanding artistic figures of the late middle ages — not only a renowned poet but a pathbreaking composer, one of the first to write polyphonic music in the style of the Ars Nova. The 18 motets on this CD are both exquisite and powerfully expressive. They’re based on repeated fragments of plainsong over which multiple voices sing melismatic lines that set completely different texts. Religious and secular messages interact in often obscure ways, and many of the motets become cases of multiple references and layers of commentary.

They’re also extremely difficult to sing, and here the Hilliard Ensemble offers performances that are immaculately prepared and breathtakingly beautiful. Making the music sound at once florid and austere, they bring out the full force of Machaut’s forward-looking dissonances. The last three motets, all written during the Hundred Years War, have an emotional intensity all their own. And ECM has finally managed to make a CD of mediæval music that doesn’t sound swamped in the echoes of some immense cathedral.