Machaut-Transkiptionen

Heinz Holliger

Guillaume de Machaut

Muriel Cantoreggi: viola;
Geneviève Strosser: viola;
Jürg Dähler: viola

The Hilliard Ensemble
David James: countertenor;
Rogers Covey-Crump:tenor;
Steven Harrold:tenor;
Gordon Jones: baritone

Begun in 2001 and composed over a ten-year period, Machaut-Transkriptionen is one of composer Heinz Holliger’s most imaginative and attractive works to date. Using pieces by medieval composer Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) as a jumping off point, Holliger refashions the original material for three violas and the voices of the Hilliard Ensemble (now, alas, disbanded). They are employed in startling ways, encompassing frequent dissonances, extended techniques in the strings, vocal clusters, and alternate tunings.

The cycle begins with alternations between Machaut’s original vocal works and string trios that are recompositions of the same selections. A gradual morphing of roles eventually brings the voices into the contemporary sound world of the strings. In some of the pieces, there is a coexistence between lines from Machaut and Holliger’s original ideas. In others, Holliger uses techniques and formal designs from Machaut pieces as compositional groundwork for otherwise far flung fantasies.

The CD is capped off by a stirring quarter of an hour: a redesign of Machaut’s Complainte for voices and violas. It is here that all of the techniques found in the preceding selections are brought to together to craft a work that, on its surface, bears little resemblance to medieval music. But the spirit of the Ars Nova period in which Machaut composed, with its enthusiasm for experimentation and, for its time, great abstraction, clearly motivates Holliger, with fascinating results. Recommended.