Brigitte Lesne

Brigitte Lesne: voz, arpa, rota, sinfonía, percusión
La lírica románica (siglos XII y XIII): espejo de la mujer (Romance Lyrics (12th and 13th centuries): Mirror of Women

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Info

From the “País de Oïl” (northern France) to Iberian lands, women sang about their love, devotion, melancholy, suffering, joys, and dreams; an invitation to travel with the songs of troubadours (in the langue d’oïl) and trouvères (in the langue d’oc).
The first two compositions of the program, a song to the Virgin and a love song in a woman’s voice, share the same melody that circulated between the ecclesiastical world and that of the troubadours, illustrating the permeability that existed at the time between sacred and profane repertoires: between celestial love and earthly love. They are followed by a series of contrasting love songs that evoke different aspects of the amorous feeling: the indifference of a lady towards the passion of her suitor, desire and mockery as an amorous game between a woman, her friend, and… her jealous husband, and the tenderness of a mother in a Latin lullaby (in which the Virgin addresses her son).
Moving to southern France, the Countess of Dia, the most famous of the trobairitz, laments the knight she loved above all. This lament is followed by two “songs of a friend,” one in the langue d’oc and the other in Galician-Portuguese, attributed to troubadours (the Provençal Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and the Galician Martín Codax), in which a young woman waits by the sea for the return of her beloved. The musical journey concludes with Sephardic songs from the Judeo-Spanish tradition, a fascinating repertoire orally transmitted by the Jewish community from the 15th century to the present day, with deep roots in the medieval world.

Program

Amors qui souprent – song, anonymous

Margot, Margot, greif sunt li mau d’amer – song, anonymous

Amereis mi vous – rondeau, anonymous
Vous arez la druerie, amis – rondeau, anonymous
Fi, mari de votre amour – rondeau and motet, Adam de la Halle

Souvent souspire mon cuer plain d’ire – song, anonymous

Avant-hier en un vert pré – ill-married song, anonymous

Onques n’amai tant com je fui amée – anonymous motet, instrumental
Dormi, fili, dormi – lullaby of the Virgin, anonymous

Trop est mes maris jalous – ill-married song, Etienne de Meaux

Oi, altas ondas que venetz sus la mar – song of a friend, Raimbaut de Vaqueiras / Aquitanian verse

Mandad’ei comigo – friend’s song, Martín Codax

Caminí por altas torres – Sephardic song, anonymous

Estat ai en greu cossirier – song, Countess of Dia / Aquitanian verse

Scalerica de oro – Sephardic wedding song, anonymous

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CONCEPTION: Brigitte Lesne / PRODUCTION: Alla francesca Discantus / Centre de musique médiévale de Paris