Search - Liber unUsualis :: Unrequited

Stunning performance!

J. Gabrielson | Walnut Creek, Ca USA | 12/27/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I heard this group in performance where I purchased this CD. The CD is everything I had hoped it would be having just heard a spectacular concert. These artists have superb voices and flawless technique. I only wish I had bought their second CD, Flyleaves."

Unusually artful ars nova

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 04/23/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Perfectly suited and well matched voices, and highly polished ars nova vocal technique! The very best CD of Machaut's chansons available, if not the only one worth hearing twice! Machaut is regarded as the last great poet to set his own poems to equally great music, but modern singers have had difficulty performing him plausibly, partly because of his rhythmic subtlety and partly because "pythagorean" tuning works better than tempered. This trio manages both problems.

A week later: I remembered an old disk, The Mirror of Narcissus sung by Gothic Voices. I dug it out and I must confess that it should have been forgotten. I don't want to withdraw my endorsement of "Unrequited" but I have to temper it. "The Mirror of Narcissus" is noticeably more exciting, especially in treatment of hockets and other rhythmic/rhetorical techniques so central to Machaut."