It is more than mere trendism to say that medieval musical practices within female communities such as nunneries have been terribly neglected. Indeed, I wonder how many students of medieval music over the years have been introduced to the notational problems of transcribing the important Las Huelgas manuscript without being at all aware that it may well have been compiled specifically for the highly renowned Cistercian Nunnery near Burgos which gives the codex its name, and which still houses it today?
This recording, then, by the women's vocal ensemble Discantus, founded in 1989 by Brigitte Lesne (already known from groups such as the Ensemble Gilles Binchois), is a useful historical corrective as well as a musically satisfying presentation. The quality of the singing is extremely high throughout, and characterized by a forward and open tone, which does not, however, jeopardize their fine control of phrasing and intonation. The darker hues of the alto and mezzo ranges in which the music is performed also lends a certain flexibility and variety to the sound, over the disc's hour span, than would perhaps be possible in the hollower and whiter reaches of the soprano range. (It is also historically more plausible.) The recording gives us a good conspectus of the manuscript's contents, including examples of the early motet, organum, and conductus—this last unfortunately rendered in the English notes (directly from the French term) as ''conduit''. Tempos are quite spacious, though convincingly realized, on the whole, and the all-female sound-world of, especially, the Notre-Dame style of organum (for example, in the final Benedicamus Domino track) is a minor revelation in these genres of thirteenth-century music.
The recorded sound is excellent, though flawed in a few places by some over-enthusiastic clipping in the digital editing process, resulting in some preternaturally abrupt initial attacks. This is a deplorably widespread but dirty trick to play on performers, and alien to that necessary sense of momentary preparation which attends all musical beginnings. I wish editors would stop it, and I wish more performers would complain.'