Un formidable voyage musical à la découverte du Moyen Âge pour les petites oreilles. Un conte musical qui nous plonge dans l'univers de « Célèbre », un enfant aux oreilles exceptionnelles, qui rencontre « la fée Musica ». L'histoire est le fil rouge permettant d'introduire une vingtaine de pièces de chant ou de musique médiévale et de faire découvrir la large palette d'instruments utilisés et leurs sonorités. Le livret propose une approche ludique, illustrée et éditorialisée des différents instruments utilisés à l'époque du Moyen Âge. Une belle façon de faire entrer des enfants, par l'image et la musique, dans l'univers du Moyen Âge.

Guillaume de Machaut was one of the great composers of a pivotal period at the intersection between the late medieval times and the Renaissance. His works include sacred compositions, such as his Messe de Nostre Dame, which took polyphonic music to new summits, as well as popular dances and songs that reveal the influence of the trouvères.
Yet this disc actually contains little music by Machaut. Only the last two pieces are by him. This leads to a bit of confusion: is Calliope trying to use Machaut’s name to sell a compilation of medieval music? This barely seems necessary, yet there is clearly some ambiguity.

The Chanson "L'Homme armé" has been fundamental for numerous Renaissance composers to appreciate aesthetic mass compositions. One of the most outstanding versions is coined by Josquin Desprez which is conclusively combined with chansons on this recording. The production received several awards in France.

The "Office of Fools" was a popular festival featuring theatre, games and dressing-up, a pagan rite whose abuses and excesses the Church tried to control until its disappearance in the 16th century. The vocal and instrumental ensemble Obsidienne, using a manuscript in the library at Sens as its basis, performs a variety of medieval repertoires inspired by this jubilant traditional feast with its disorderliness and inversion of values.

Although there are only four securely authentic motets attributed to him, Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420-1497) makes a definite impact on this style. The three settings of standard Marian texts, Alma Redemptoris mater, Ave Maria, and Salve Regina show Ockeghem's amazing array of 4-point counterpoint in what would otherwise be fairly typical settings of the era (aside from the lack of a cantus firmus in Ave Maria, also the one non-antiphon of the group). The massive 5-voice Intemerata Dei Mater uses a composite text, rather than a liturgical one, apparently put together by Ockeghem himself. It has a particularly low scoring, and an even more forceful impact, quoting motives he also used in the 5-voice mass torso Fors seulement and the 4-voice Missa Mi-Mi. Finally, Ut heremita solus is a probable work, surviving without a text, and showing some idiomatic instrumental thinking.