Vray dieu d'amours qui vrais amans resjoye Song in the century of Charles VII

In the middle of the 15th century, Martin le Franc, in his vast poem "Champion des Dames", gave a singular place to the music and musicians of his time, whose new practice he praised: they had taken on the suavity of English content and this marvellous pleasure made their singing joyful and noteworthy. This new style, imbued with the frisky concordance of the English model (abundant consonances of sixths and thirds), reflected the exchange of knowledge and repertoires at the heart of a Europe already moving towards the Renaissance. The works of the great masters Dunstable, Dufay, Binchois and Ockeghem (hired as first chaplain by Charles VII) were copied extensively in rich manuscripts, such as the Chansonnier Cordiforme by Jean de Montchenu (a wealthy ecclesiastic from Savoie): a sumptuously illuminated manuscript, a collection of the most fashionable songs of the time, housed in a case which, when opened, takes the form of two hearts joined together (an allusion to the Treaty of Arras which sealed the reconciliation between the King of France and Philip the Good in 1435). It is this marvellous creativity, and the modernity of the composers of this 15th century marked by wars, but during which poets and musicians never ceased to sing of love, that are highlighted in this programme.

Alla francesca young ensemble Maud Haering, Mathias Lunghi, Camile Macinenti: vocals Nolwenn Le Guern: bowed viols Brigitte Lesne: direction and conception, gothic harp, percussion