Search - Joculatores Upsalienses :: Four Seasons

Exotic and Intellectually Stimulating

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 07/25/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Four Seasons". Medieval and Renaissance Songs performed by the Joculatores Upsalienses. Recorded in September, October and December 1976 (tracks 1 thru 20) and November 1982 (tracks 21 thru 32) at Wik Castle, Sweden. This compilation published as a CD (BIS-CD 75) in 1990. Total playing time: 70'20".

This disc has, in fact, only 32 tracks, the May Songs by Neithart von Reuenthal being actually subsumed under one track number, despite the Amazon listing. And please do not be confused by the title "The Four Seasons": this recording has nothing whatever to do with Vivaldi! What we have here is a group of amateur and semi-professional musicians (twenty of them, to be exact) playing original versions and arrangements of songs from the medieval and renaissance periods (between around 1200 and 1620). The singers sometimes distort their voices to sound nasal, something that was considered "chic" in early music circles a couple of decades ago, but despite this there is also some very pleasant singing, both in the solos and in the polyphonic pieces. There are also instrumental numbers, and most of the songs (but not all) are also accompanied by an assortment of medieval and renaissance instruments. At this point it is good to know that the documentation of this disc is beyond reproach: Each song is described in detail, including which instruments and voices are used; the texts are printed in full; and there is an illustrated glossary of instruments which will be a mine of information for anyone not already into the period instrument fad - it was something similar in the booklet of Philip Pickett's recording of Praetorius' "Terpsichore" which turned me into an early music enthusiast nearly 20 years ago, although I should perhaps add that being able to see these instruments played live is even better than just reading about them and listening to CDs. But if you do listen to CDs, you could do a lot worse than go for "The Four Seasons" (and the other two discs by this group which BIS have published: Joculatores Upsalienses: Early Music at Wik; Skogen, Flickan och Flaskan), they are able to give a great impression of the flavour of these ancient instruments. The recorded sound is, as I have come to expect from BIS, well-nigh perfect, although these old recordings were still made with analogue equipment, and I did occasionally detect a little "pre-echoing" from the tapes, but definitely not enough to disturb an exotic and intellectually stimulating musical experience."