I wonder to what extent the increasing prominence of all-female (or nearly all-female) vocal ensembles on the early music scene is a natural and timely reaction against the prevalence of all-male groups. Perhaps it was Sequentia’s recording of Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo virtutum that started the trend back in 1982 (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 1/84 – nla); today, one can mention Stevie Wishart’s Sinfonye in England, in France Brigitte Lesne’s Discantus and (perhaps most conspicuously) Anonymous 4 in the United States. Another group, another country: the Italian ensemble La Reverdie consists of four women (two pairs of sisters, in fact) and one man, all of whom sing and play from a great variety of instruments (lute, harp, vielle, rebec, recorder, cornetto muto, percussion). The instrumental component here is arguably more prominent than for any of the other groups I have named, and the repertory covered is similarly broad, ranging from the tenth century to the fifteenth. La Reverdie have issued a number of similar collections on this label: here the unifying theme is Northern Italy.
Perhaps it is the wide-ranging, roving character of these explorations that explains why it took me a while to warm to this disc. Most groups (especially Anglo-Saxon ones) tend to concentrate each programme on one period or genre, and from that standpoint La Reverdie could almost be accused of profligacy; on the other hand, their sensitivity to the needs of different genres seems to grow in refinement with each disc, and the range of approaches is matched by their dexterity in handling them. Purely instrumental items are dispatched with relish, two- or three-voice madrigals are finely poised between lyricism and sprightliness, even the odd four-voice Latin motet doesn’t feel out of place. The singing has an unselfconscious spontaneity about it, straight, agile and light. That probably accounts for the hint of diffidence in handling extreme registers, but in any case Italian musicians aren’t and never have been interested in the sort of 24-carat polish of Anglo-Saxon groups. It is the range of achievement that is impressive here, and while some tracks are bound to set the purists’ teeth on edge, those who associate medieval repertories with ‘monk music’ or wall-to-wall polyphony will find a welcome antidote here.
The recording quality, consistent with Arcana’s usual standard, enhances the lightness and variety of scoring. True to their name, Arcana also do a nice line in recondite insert-notes, and Ella de’ Mircovich upholds that tradition as well, I’m afraid. Never mind: the disc itself is like one of those well-made light and sparkling wines from Northern Italy. Cheers!'