The Codex Chantilly, compiled around the end of the 14th century, is at once one of the most famous and least known of medieval manuscripts. Nearly every music history textbook after about 1960 features a picture of the heart-shaped manuscript of Baude Cordier's Belle, bonne, sage and mentions the feats of rhythmic complexity that many of the composers of the period -- the generation after Guillaume de Machaut -- achieved. Performances that attempt to make musical sense out of the manuscript have been quite rare, however, and this release (and a Vol. 1 companion) led by Dutch recorder player
Kees Boeke, definitely fills a need. The manuscript poses problems on almost every level: the rhythmic notation is complex and often puzzling, the harmonic practice is as yet little understood, and the texts seem filled with arcane historical references.
Boeke, his group
Tetraktys, and top-notch singers Zsuzsi Töth and
Carlos Mena (a rising countertenor) untangle a lot of the difficulties with attractive, straightforward realizations that offer a way into this fascinating repertory. The booklet commentary is helpful, pointing to such purely visual aspects of the music as the self-referential quality of Or voit tout (track 6) by the mysterious composer known only as Guido: the text bemoans the complexity of contemporary notation, but the music is written in exactly the notation the text is complaining about. There is even an intricate drawing by
Boeke showing the net of family relationships among the monarchs of the period. This is an arcane repertory, full of puzzles, one of those little cul de sacs of complexity into which Western music has periodically fallen. Anyone whose interest has ever been snared by Cordier's heart should check out this release and its companion.