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Editorial Reviews

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a collection of some of the earliest motets, dating from the thirteenth century, an era bereft of composers' names and, for most of us, devoid of context. Thankfully, Christopher Page and Gothic Voices add some monophonic trouvère songs by named composers into the mix and, as Page points out in his dense but very comprehensive booklet notes, these are stylistically incompatible with the motets. He also includes detailed information as to how the motet evolved from the polyphonic conductus -- the latter exemplified by a piece called "Festa januaria" -- and attempts, through the use of cover illustration, an explanation of the continuous jousting between sacred and secular elements in the culture of the thirteenth century.

In the specific historic area The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is dealing with -- roughly 1210 to 1240 -- France was definitively emerging as a world power, having thrown off dominion by the Normans in 1204, defeating Aragon in 1213, and the English the following year. During this time, France was beginning to build its great Gothic cathedrals and manuscript culture moved out of the monasteries and into the cities; elsewhere, the Crusades were in full swing and the horsemen archers of Genghis Khan were running riot over the Eastern lands. After some fits and starts in previous times, polyphony got a genuine boost from the Notre Dame School about a century earlier, and one aspect that The Marriage of Heaven and Hell makes clear was that its assimilation into popular culture was anything but easy. Although everything on The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is beautifully sung, some of the music itself is not particularly beautiful; it can seem clunky or monotonous and demonstrates an inexact grasp of how voices work together. With the early motet, multiple texts abound, and one wonders sometimes how the gallimaufry of jumbled texts could add up into anything listenable or practical in any era. Nevertheless, a century and more would pass before the advent of the mastery of Guillaume de Machaut in handling such textures, and occasionally here one encounters among the sacred pieces particularly -- for example, "Ave parens/Ad gratie/Ave Maria" -- a piece that successfully blends its component parts.

If anyone is liable to make sense of the music of this era, hardly investigated in most cases, it is Gothic Voices. The care that the group takes even with the solo, monophonic pieces is impressive, and Gothic Voices put the best face they can on this widely varying material. There remains a question as to how a non-expert listener can make sense of it, even with Page's comprehensive notes, or perhaps, in spite of them; this is such alien territory that context has to be king, and one is not sure that it takes the throne in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. However, choices for even expert listeners in motet literature this early are not numerous; the plain and tentative creations of the thirteenth century often failing to gather notice in comparison to the luxuriant, sexy, challenging, and ever intriguing products of the fourteenth. In this sense, Christopher Page and Gothic Voices have rendered an invaluable service in making this available, and to those who want to know about the evolution of the motet vis á vis the polyphonic conductus, then The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is the right ceremony to attend. Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

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