Composer: Pierre Attaingnant, Gabriel Bataille, Antoine de Bertrand, Loyset Compère, Guillaume Costeley, Josquin Despres, Clément Janequin, Claude le Jeune, Orlando di Lassus, Claudin de Sermisy
Performer: Les Sacqueboutiers, Ensemble Clément Janequin, Vincent Bouchot
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Flora
Catalogue: FLO2410
Release: 2015
Size: 375 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Josquin: Vive le Roy – Fanfare, à 4
02. Jeune: Meslanges, Livre 2 – Chansons à six: No. 1, Je boys à toy mon compagnon
03. Janequin: Or vien ça, vien, m’amye Perrette, à 4
04. Sermisy: Hau hau hau le boys, à 4
05. Bataille: Basse danse – O que mesa que manjar! – Quien quiere entrar?
06. Costeley: Grosse garce noire et tendre
07. Lassus: Lucescit jam o socii, LV 759, à 4
08. Janequin: Martin menait son porceau au marché, à 4
09. Lassus: La nuict froide et sombre, LV 578, à 4
10. Bertrand: Je vis, je meurs
11. Janequin: La chasse, à 4 “Gentilz veneurs allez en queste au buysson … Sur tous soulas, plaisir et lyesse”
12. anon.: Premier Livre de Danseries: No. 6, Pavane and Gaillarde Ferrareze
13. anon.: 51 Galliards, Pavans, Branles and Basse Dances: No. 45, Courante (Gaillarde No. 15) – No. 7, Tourdion
Janequin: La guerre, à 4, “La bataille de Marignan”
14. “Escoutez tous gentils gaulois”
15. “Fan fan. Frere le le lan fan fan”
16. Sermisy: Le content est riche en ce monde, à 4
17. Compère: Nous sommes de l’ordre de Saint Babouin, à 4
“Pleasure of singing and joyful instruments. Cheerful and nostalgic pieces, bawdy and poetic mark” the track of Gargantua, the gentle giant, from his birth to the founding of the Abbey of Theleme with his wise moto “Do what thou wilt” a lesson of good living!”
Deluxe digibook of 115 pages with illustrations, photos and original texts [in French only]
The title of this album, Fay ce que vouldras (Do what thou willst), is taken from the 1532 novel La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel by François Rabelais, and the recording features readings from the book interspersed with vocal and instrumental music of the period by composers like Josquin Desprez, Claude Lejeune, Clément Janequin, Orlande de Lassus, and Claudin de Sermisy. This is an album that should be highly entertaining for fans of these composers and anyone who enjoys music that’s quirky or sometimes just plain strange. The spoken texts, in Middle French, are delivered with such gusto and panache by Vincent Bouchot that they should engage even listeners who don’t understand a word of what is being said. (The CD comes with a gorgeous, lavishly produced book in French that includes no translations.) The performances by the wind ensemble Les Sacqueboutiers and the male vocal group Ensemble Clément Janequin are ebullient and polished. This is rowdy secular music and the performers sound like they are having the time of their lives with its high spirits and occasional loopiness. The music’s oddness peaks in the second part of Janequin’s chanson, La chasse, in its depiction of a pack of dogs, barking, howling, and yelping. The music itself is riotously unconventional — Janequin obviously had a wicked sense of humor — and the singers’ very free rendering of the hounds’ gnof, gnof, tronc, tronc, plif, plof is hilarious. The sound is immaculate and detailed.