Love to My Liking
Alkemie
Bright Shiny Things BSTC-0201 (alkemie.bandcamp.com/album/love-to-my-liking)
Unusually for recordings of medieval troubadour songs, all five vocalists on this CD are women – three of the six-member Alkemie ensemble (they also play instruments) and two “guests.” They’re reviving the spirit of the all-but-forgotten Trobairitz, a unique all-female troupe of 13th-century French troubadours (not mentioned in the CD’s notes), discovered when I googled “female troubadours.” The notes also offer little information beyond the names of the selections, performers and instruments. Most regrettably, there are no texts or translations.
Searching online, I learned that Alkemie was founded in 2013, is based in Brooklyn and that most of the CD’s 13 selections were drawn from the 13th-century collections Chansonnier du Roi and Montpellier Codex. I also found descriptions of five instruments with names unfamiliar to me: hümmelchen (small German bagpipe), viola a chiavi (seven-keyed viola), scheitholt (German zither), gittern (small lute) and douçaines (double-reed woodwind). These, plus recorders, vielle, psaltery, lute, harps and percussion provide Alkemie’s constantly varying combinations of intriguing instrumental timbres, among the disc’s chief delights.
I particularly enjoyed the selections featuring all five singers – the up-tempo E, bone amourette/La rotta della Manfredina, La joliveté/Douce amiete and L’autrier chevauchoie delez Paris, and the haunting, chant-like Belle doette as fenestres se siet, lasting over nine minutes.
Although Alkemie’s fresh arrangements, incorporating touches of bluegrass and Celtic music aren’t historically authentic, since no one can ever know exactly how these ancient pieces originally sounded, musicological conjecture must yield to extant entertainment.
