Two women, two books, one place.

We have chosen to link two Eleanors, two books and one place: Fontevraud. A double abbey run by women and founded in 1101 on the edge of the provinces of Poitou, Anjou and Touraine, Fontevraud owed its power to the Plantagenets and to its close links with Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor of Aquitaine’s recumbent statue in the abbey church shows her holding a stone book, one of the first representations of a woman reading. The second Eleanor is Eleanor of Brittany, Fontevraud’s sixteenth abbess, associated with a Gradual, a book containing chants for use in the Mass.
Musicology is in the habit of strictly compartmentalising developments chronologically. We, however, have tried to understand movements, influences and perhaps the relationships between the 12th and 14th centuries and between these two women, both of whom possessed power and knowledge. For music that was mainly transmitted orally, a certain degree of stability can be observed; chants were transmitted from generation to generation without any radical changes. The girls and women of Fontevraud were of diverse origins and brought their own language, culture
and chants into the cloisters of the monastery with them. Less than a century separates the death of the first Eleanor and the birth of the second.
We have chosen to proceed via concentric movements whose epicentre is located in 12th century Aquitaine. Like a pebble cast into the water, the waves have rippled outwards to reach us in the shape of a work by Philippe Hersant, a setting of a poem by William IX: the Song of William of Aquitaine.

1 CD – 14 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 68’09
Release : Avril 2017
EAN CD : 3560530849724

Reviews

Découvrez la critique de Classiquenews ici

Réécoutez l’émission Les femmes, le pouvoir et la musique sur France Culture

The first marking on the score of Zad Moultaka’s Ubi es poetically summons ‘invisible voices’.

Like Hildegard von Bingen, the composer indeed seeks to make an initial voice, a prima vox, resonate in the furthermost of ourselves. The Gemme project thus seeks to erect a sort of arc in sound, a rainbow connecting earth and sky and weaving echoes between the music and the words of the 12th century and those of our time. Piece after piece, he gently accompanies the listener in going towards him- or herself. Consequently, do the cloistered nun’s anthems combined with Zad Moultaka’s creation not participate in a monastic liturgy as usual? They do not introduce the singing of psalms but are proposed as colours, gleams to attest to Hildegard’s principal inspirations.
Hélène Décis-Lartigau

And what if Hildegard’s visions and voices materialized to describe to her the state of the world some thousand years hence? Our contemporary world? The composer’s speculation and mental exercises? This project proposes a path, a taut line, a bridge taking root in the saint’s songs, from the brightness of O splendidissima gemma by way of Cum processit, which recalls the fall of Adam, or the disturbing Cruor sanguinis.
Zad Moultaka

Gemme was conceived as a whole, and Hildegard’s pieces chosen with the composer. We decided not to sing the psalms customarily flanked by the anthems and to sing the doxology only once. We opted for a Latin pronunciation. The programme unfolds a bit as if Zad Moultaka’s work, present in embryo from the beginning, traced an ever-deeper furrow in Hildegard’s sphere up to encompassing it in a spiral movement that pulls the listener towards Ubi es.
Laurence Brisset

Musical Direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Estelle Nadau, Eugénie De Mey Caroline Tarrit, Marie-George Monnet
Hildegard Von Bingen (1098 – 1179) / Zad Moultaka (1967-)

Recording, editing and production:
Benoît Gaspard
Recording made at the Abbaye aux Dames Cité Musique de Saintes from 2nd to 6th of  september 2014

1 CD – 13 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 55’10
Release : Mars 2015
EAN CD :

Reviews

Classiquenews
« By its depth, the dramatisme chiselled by its program, the bow tightened between both musical writings, quality of the singers who carry it, here is indisputably the best never CD by the singers of De Caelis. »
Alexandre Pham, 28/03/2015
Découvrez la critique complète de Classiquenews ici

Musicologie.org
« Zad Moultaka a donc écrit la première, les trois dernières et coécrit les trois avant-dernières pièces, tout en respectant complètement l’atmosphère originelle. Un peu plus de huit siècles auparavant, huit siècles durant lequel le silence éternel annoncé par Pascal s’est amplifié et étendu. Avec une bande son ténue, comme le son fantôme de l’apparition du monde. Et une ébauche de polyphonie réverbérée par les nuages au dixième chant. Qui devient gangue vocale aux suivants, le temps que les distances s’abolissent et que les voix des anges nous parviennent dans leurs invocations antiques.
Où es-tu, berger des âmes ? L’ensemble De Caelis, dirigé par Laurence Brisset, prête pleinement ses cinq voix de femmes, ensemble ou en solo, à cette monodie lancinante, lointaine ou proche, ancienne ou moderne, rassurée ou inquiétante. »
Alain Lambert, 26/03/2015

Classiquenews video for album release

Vidéo sur la résidence de création à Saintes

Codex Chantilly, XIVe century

Imagine a garden where streams and foutians murmur, where day and night coexist, as do body and soul, here one gathers exquisite frutis, at times bitter, at other times fatal. Here, charming nightingales and inelegant cickoos warble along with the phoenix… this is the amourous orchard where one loses oneself in pleasur and suffering. An evocation of a dual nature, real and ideal, which reveals the most sublime, the most secret thoughts of the poet-musicians, skilled at handling allegories and capable of depictin a world within a world and doing so infinitely.

Although the courtly tradition inherited from the troubadours is still evident, this music is contemporary with the emergence of the notion of the Individual, as attest the portraits an seals. Autobiographical elements are increasing, and real loves, real torments riste to the surface in these textes. May you enjoy this stroll through the orchards of love.

CODEX CHANTILLY
A manuscript that is puzzling both in its provenace and its destination, one that conceals musical and poetic riddles within it and a is therefore a perfect illustration of the Ars Subtilior: the Codex Chantilly, MS. 564, in the library of the Château de Chantilly, is one of the richest collections of French music of the late Middle Ages. Perfectly preserved, it provides clear proof of the imagination and the virtuosity of the musicians who were exploring the boundaries of a system of musical notation that had only recently been established.

Musical Direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Florence Limon, Estelle Nadau, Caroline Tarrit, Léna Orye
Harp: Angélique Mauillon
Organetto: Guillermo Pérez
Chantilly manuscript – 14th century ÆON,
Recording, editing and production:
Jérôme Lejeune
Recording made at the Eglise Notre-Dame de Centeilles à Siran

ÆON 2010, distribué par Harmonia-Mundi
1 CD – 16 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration :
Release : 2010
EAN CD :

Jubilant, virtuoso, filled with light and inspired by the work of the musicians of the Papal Chapel in Avignon, the Messe de Tournai is undoubtedly the oldest polyphonic Mass to have survived.

Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, it has the breadth and majesty of the greatest works of Gothic architecture. The Mass is a compilation and not a single work: its composers are unknown and the various sections were written in different places at different times, although they seem to have been compiled and copied by one single scribe. This Mass is both archaic and ground-breaking; it provides a fine demonstration of the upsets engendered by the transition from the Ars Antiqua to the Ars Nova.

Made with financial support from the Communauté française (Direction générale de la Culture, Service de la Musique)

Recording, editing and production:
Jérôme Lejeune
Recording made at the Eglise Saint-Apollinaire in Bolland, Belgium
Ricercar, distributed by Harmomia-Mundi

Musical direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Florence Limon, Estelle Nadau, Léna Orye, Caroline Tarrit

1 CD – 15 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 51′
Release : 2008
EAN CD :

Reviews

Classica Répertoire Juin 2008
« Luminosity and clarity: the De Caelis ensemble embodies these two words in both plainsong and polyphony. Their sound is filled with light and is crystal clear in contrapuntal passages; its supple fullness and suavity contradict this repertoire’s reputation for austerity. One particular quality of the ensemble should be stressed: its ability to breathe an irrepressible rhythmic pulse into the contrapuntal lines. »
Sophie Roughol

Res Musica, juin 2008
« One of the most important works of the repertoire, its timeless and overwhelming beauty is deeply modern in its expression as much as in its composition. De Caelis make us hear the melancholy sensuality of this music and shake the polyphonic architecture of this music to its foundations. These voices contribute to the poetry of the intermingled sacred and profane texts and to the colours of the stained glass windows, reflecting the thousand facets of a spirituality that seeks itself and is confronted with the infinite silence of the celestial spheres. »
Monique Lepelletier

Diapason, juillet 2008 4 diapasons
« The fine work of this group specialising in mediaeval counterpoint has provided us with a remarkable version, one that is undoubtedly the best available, of one of Philippe de Vitry’s most impressive motets. Their timbre, theirmusical intentions and the colours of the music itself guarantee true moments of grace. De Caelis have provided proof of their supremacy… »
David Fiala

French musique from XIIIe et XIVe centuries

J’ai Désirs deals with the evolution in aesthetics between the Ars Antiqua and the Ars Nova. The courtly atmosphere of the majority of the pieces lies firmly in the long tradition of the troubadours and minstrels. The texts are in French and many of them express women’s opinions and feelings, with women who are by turns colourful, daring, happy, passionate and sweet all mixed up together.

Philippe de Vitry and Jean de Murs published their treatises around 1320. This marked the beginning of the Ars Nova, although the novi nevertheless made use of a large part of what they had inherited from those before them.

De Caelis has introduced a few alterations and has also made a special point of its handling of the shorter notes; such an interpretation makes the passage from the old towards the new much less violent. The singers take great delight in these changes of atmosphere and take mischievous pleasure in their expressive games. They emphasise the contours of the music with their voices and by using their voices and timbres in alternation.

With the financial support of the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication – Direction Régionale Normandie, de la Région Basse-Normandie et du Département de l’Orne.

Recording, editing and production:
Jean-Marc Laisné / AMATI
Recording made at the Chapelle du Collège Saint Thomas d’Aquin

Musical direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Florence Limon, Estelle Nadau, Léna Orye, Caroline Tarrit

1 CD – 33 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 65’56
Release : Mars 2006
EAN CD : 3133580130519

Reviews

Diapason, 4 diapasons
« Prefaced by Laurence Brisset’s valuable musicological commentary, this musical journey leads us from the conductus tradition towards new principles of composition … vocalità and ease in rhetoric are two virtues to which the performers are particularly sensitive … Their lesson in how to sing is always happily formulated in a euphonious manner that is pleasing to the ear, to say the least. To close, we should also note an excellent handling of the langue d’oïl. »
Roger Tellart, 11/2006

Le Monde de la Musique, 4 stars
« A generous sample of the ‘classic’ phase of the mediaeval motet, the extracts being taken from the Montpellier manuscript, the principal manuscript source of the 1280s. »
Marc Desmet, 10/2006

Ouest-France
« Words of love in the abbey … They are expressed through the texts, vibrating prettily in flowery language with unusual and poetic turns of phrase. We should stress the exceptional intelligibility of the five voices … their prowess is equal to any challenge … between discursive voices and coloured decorative work…  ».
Sylvie Huguenin, octobre 2006

Circle, revolution

Polyphonic compositional technique changed fundamentally at the beginning of the 15th century. Orbis portrayss the appearance of a new style in England that was then to go on to influence Europe as a whole. This was the birth of a feeling for harmony: a linear approach to music was no longer predominant and voice-leading became subject to more vertical control. The purity of fourths and fifths was abandoned in favour of the sweetness of thirds and sixths. De Caelis focuses on this period of transition by providing as supple a performance as possible. The ensemble has chosen to highlight the music’s link with the Middle Ages just as much as with the Renaissance that was about to dawn. The recording supplies a graceful exploration of English descants, songs, motets and carols.

With the financial support of the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication – Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles de Basse-Normandie, of the Région Basse-Normandie and of the Département de l’Orne and of the ADAMI.

Recording, editing and production:
Jean-Marc Laisné / AMATI
Recording made at the Chapelle de la Providence de Sées (61) in January 2004
Musical direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers : Laurence Brisset, Florence Limon, Estelle Nadau, Léna Orye, Caroline Tarrit

1 CD – 19 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 62’08
Release : Septembre 2004
EAN CD : 3133580130212

Reviews

Classica Répertoire, 9
« The voices seem naturally beautiful and clear … each voice is distinct but the ensemble has a remarkable homogeneity. Their coordination is faultless. The primary characteristic of the ensemble is their sense of rhythm: it gives a striking relief to the music and leads the listener to experience the music just as much with his soul as with his body. »
François Camper, 11/2004

Diapason, 5 diapasons
« The ladies of De Caelis are clearly in love with this repertoire in which a new sound world was established … Both flexible and earthy, their graceful singing besieges not only the sanctuary but also the century … A suave acoustic that even the most austere ears would find delectable… »
Roger Tellart, 12/2004

O Felices Lacrimæ highlights two symbolic figures of mediaeval England: St. Thomas à Becket and St. Edmund the Martyr.

St. Thomas à Becket was assassinated in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170, whilst St. Edmund the Martyr was tortured and then killed by Danish invaders because he would not renounce his Christian faith in the 9th century. Their tragic fates and spectacularly sacrilegious deaths inspired many works, including these fine polyphonic pieces from the 14th century, poignantly expressive as they are. This recording contains a majority of pieces composed for the centenary of the death of St. Thomas à Becket. High musical demands and a desire for perfection characterise performances by the De Caelis ensemble. Their generous and celestial singing adds a human factor to this spiritual homage.

With the financial support of the Région Basse-Normandie, of the Département de l’Orne and of the DRAC Basse-Normandie.

Studio SM 2002, D 2930
“Selection of Best Sound Recordings” Répertoire
Recording, editing and production:
Jean-Marc Laisné / AMATI
Recording made at the Abbaye de Fontmorigny (18) in October 2001

Musical direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Raphaèle Kennedy, Catherine Laebens-Makedonsky, Florence Limon, Estelle, Nadau, Léna Orye, Caroline Tarrit

1 CD – 22 tracks
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Duration : 65’58
Release : April 2002
EAN CD : 3133580129308

Reviews

Le Monde de la Musique, 5 stars
« De Caelis makes their singing more beautiful, their sound homogeneous and attains heavenly heights in pieces that are impressive for their virtuoso technique. The singers create an effect of unreality by emphasising arches and sonority and by taking their vocal gifts lightly… »
Marc Desmet, 10/2002

Diapason, 5 diapasons
« The ensemble De Caelis presents a penetratingly flexible sound and a radiant musicality that none other seems to possess. The seduction of their cantabile line incorporates the impulses of a faultless spirituality in a second album that is as appealing as was their first. High musical demands and a desire for perfection characterise this ensemble, a group that deserves to be followed carefully. »
Roger Tellart, 07/2002

Répertoire, 8 points
« The singing of the De Caelis ensemble delivers their melodies with generosity at the same time as it states their essentially solemn and grace character. The fragile breath of the upper voice renders this music human and sketches poignant contours that become almost ecstatic. The clear pronunciation of the text is one of the ensemble’s great qualities. »
Sylvain Gasser, 10/2002

Répertoire, Selection of Best Sound Recordings
« The vocal texture, free from the slightest distortion, unfolds in an acoustic as if it were snatched upwards in a supernatural aura. The velvet sound and the placing of the soloists approaches a perfection that is all too rare in this type of ensemble. »
Pascal Brissaud, 11/2002

23 chansons d’inspiration religieuse et amoureuse pour découvrir la vitalité de l’anglo-normand, langue de prestige et de culture du XIIIeme siècle.

Duce Creature underlines the influence of the School of Notre-Dame de Paris on the English repertoire of the second half of the 13th century. It demonstrates the particular way in which the English received and modified this innovatory French style. Several original pieces were probably written by local composers; amongst these are the priceless Anglo-Norman motets.

The Anglo-Norman language was imposed by William the Conqueror in 1066 and inspired many literary works of high quality. The smiling mysticism of the period allotted a particular place to the Marian cult, as can be seen from the number of works dedicated to her on this recording. De Caelis has made a particular point of faithfully respecting the pronunciation of the clerks of the period; the ensemble brings both warmth and sensuality to these elegant songs inspired not only by religion, but also by love.

With the financial support of the ADAMI, the SCPP, the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and the Département de l’Orne.

Studio SM 2000, D 2851
Recording and production: Jean-Marc Laisné / AMATI
Recording made at the Eglise de Sérigny (61) in 2000
Musical direction: Laurence Brisset
Singers: Laurence Brisset, Raphaèle Kennedy, Catherine Laebens-Makedonsky, Florence Limon, Caroline Tarrit

1 CD – 23 titres
Interprète : Ensemble De Caelis
Durée : 57’08
Date de sortie : Septembre 2000
EAN CD : 3133580128547

Reviews

Télérama, ffff
« There is much carnality, heat, femininity and sensuality in Laurence Brisset’s ensemble. A touching part of our patrimony that is also part of our forgotten memories. »
Xavier Lacavalerie, 10/2000 (n°2650)

Le Monde de la Musique, Choc
« Through their vocal suppleness and sweetness of line, this ensemble (…) brings out the charm that emanates from the motets and the conductus. … The clarity and richness of the timbres enables us to enjoy the marvels of the composition itself (…) »
Marc Desmet, 02/2001

Classica, recommanded by Classica
« We shivered upon listening to this recording as if we had found a pearl hidden in a box. So much purity and delicacy in one recording deserves some special attention. … De Caelis matches the light of the most richly-coloured stained glass windows and proclaims its identity here. »
Stéphan Perreau, 01/2001

Diapason, 5 diapasons (n°475)
« …visions with the rainbow colours of stained glass. They are the equal in refinement of the American singers of Anonymous IV… »
Roger Tellart, 11/2000

Goldberg Magazine, 5 stars
« The De Caelis ensemble produces a rich sound and fully masters the complicated style of the music. The sound of this French ensemble is sumptuous and technical challenges seem to be child’s play to them…»
Ivan Moody, 05/2001