Paul Van Nevel, Huelgas Ensemble - The Treasures of Claude Le Jeune (2014)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 252 Mb | Total time: 65:18 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | # 88843022442 | Recorded: 2013
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 252 Mb | Total time: 65:18 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | # 88843022442 | Recorded: 2013
Le Jeune’s distinctive contribution to the French chanson marks him out as one of the genre’s essential figures. He is best known for having given musical voice to the concept of the vers mesure a l’antique. The pioneer of this poetic style, Antoine du Baif, sought to return to the simplicity of Greek verse with its clear rules of scansion. The Protestant Le Jeune responded with polyphonic settings in which melismas are abolished in favour of long or short notes of constant duration, corresponding to the strong/weak accentual patterns of the words. In his hands this seemingly daunting restriction is remarkably flexible, and other composers experimented with it, if only briefly (as in Lassus’s lovely Une puce).