Chaucer Songbook: Celtic Music and Early Music for Harp and Voice, The

College Literature, Winter 2002 by Scott, Carolyn F, Yeager, James A

Wood, Carol. 2000. The Chaucer Songbook: Celtic Music and Early Music for Harp and Voice. Book and CD set. Pacific, MO: Mel Bay Publishers and Epona Records. $24.95.

In recent years, developments in the study of both Medieval Literature and music have led to increased interest in the way both genres intersect in medieval culture. Nigel Wilkins s Music in the Age of Chaucer, first published in 1979 and reissued in 1995, explores the music of Chaucer s time and analyzes how musical performance and practice informs Chaucer s work. The reissue includes Chaucer Songs, Wilkins s settings of Chaucer s lyrics to the music of Continental composers. Along with this scholarly interest in medieval music s connection to literature, musicians, and musicologists work to recreate authentic performances. Period or early music performances value original instrumentation and playing methods (fingerings, bowings, vocal style). The rediscovery of authentic instruments and associated performance practice began after 1900. Today major recording companies such as Harmonic Mundi and DGGArchive are devoted to authentic performance. Early music performers, such as The Baltimore Consort and The Dufay Collective, command large audiences and a sizeable international recording market share. The Chaucer Songbook aims to provide a blend of literature and music with a connection to Chaucer. Such a CD might be useful to give a taste of the musical culture of Chaucer s time, but this CD falls short of authentic recreation. In its print form, The Chaucer Songbook might be useful to someone interested in recreating early music.

The Chaucer Songbook compact disk and book operate as companions, although each has a different focus and can serve different ends. The title is slightly disingenuous, since only four of the songs are directly related to Chaucer. The remaining pieces are either from the Medieval period, and are likely to have been known by Chaucer and his contemporaries, or relate to an allusion in Chaucer. Some connections are quite tenuous, however.

The texts offer a variety of secular and sacred content and lyrics in Latin, Middle English, and Medieval French. On the compact disk, four different vocalists and three instrumentalists provide a modest level of vocal and instrumental sophistication. One problem is consistency in the pronunciation of the Middle English; in some cases, the vowels and diphthongs are quite modern.The two major categories of lyrics, religious and secular, have fairly equal representation. These categories are not as clear-cut as they might seem at first. In medieval poetry, many lyrics addressed to Mary make use of the imagery of secular love poetry, whereas love poetry often exalts the beloved, invoking a religion of love; "Maid in the Moor" provides a good example of this ambiguity. R.T. Davies, in Medieval English Lyrics (1964), notes that the fourteenth-- century Bishop of Ossory disapproved of this song and others like it, but that others see it as an allegorical Marian poem. In its structure and content, it bears a strong resemblance to the more frequently anthologized lyric, "I Sing of a Maiden."

The most familiar lyric and tune "Angelus ad Virginem" is best known as a Christmas carol, but the reference to it in "The Miller's Tale" indicates that Nicholas sings it during all seasons. The passing reference to this religious lyric on the tongue of a rather worldly clerk and in a fairly bawdy fabliaux indicates the pervasiveness of religion in medieval life. The sacred and secular are not kept separate. The other religious lyric with a direct reference to Chaucer is "Alma Redemptoris Mater," a song in honor of Mary that serves as the catalyst in "The Prioress's Tale" for the murder of the protagonist.The tale belongs to a miracles of the Virgin genre, so this antiphon is a key to the development of the plot. Wood notes the irony of the beauty of the hymn in contrast to the anti-Semitism of the tale. The plea in the antiphon for Mary's mercy and intercession emphasizes the medieval focus on the cult of Mary. The other religious lyrics include a Middle English hymn to the Virgin and a Sanctus that provides an example of medieval polyphony. That the Sanctus uses a synthesized keyboard rather than a true early instrument seriously flaws the recording.

Among the secular lyrics, the only song on the CD written by Chaucer is the "Roundel of the Birds" taken from The Parliament of Fowles. Wood creates the arrangement by combining Chaucer's lyric with a melody by Guillaume de Machaut. This combination is effective, as Wilkins has shown, and works with such other Chaucerian lyrics as the Black Knight's song to his lady in "The Book of the Duchess" or the "Canticus Troili" in Troilus and Criseyde. Such arrangements would have served to make the Chaucer Songbook more Chaucerian. The other secular song with a direct reference to Chaucer, "My Lief Is Faren in a Londe," is mentioned in "The Nun's Priest's Tale" as a duet. It is not performed here as a duet, but the two different melodies give a sense of the variety of tunes available. One difficulty in compiling such a collection is the fact that we often have lyrics without melodies and tunes without words. Wood s combinations of lyrics and melodies on this album are generally effective.