Kim Bates wrote this for Green Man Review.
The quest for the grail has long inspired dreamers and romantics, as well as seekers hoping to scrape away the thin veneer of Christianity in search of old European themes of the otherworld, cauldrons of rebirth, and cycles of kingship. La Nef, an innovative early music ensemble from Quebec, have returned to the 12th century French texts of Chrétien de Troyes, who composed a poem detailing the adventures of a Welsh knight, Perceval. The original texts contain no music, and are written in an archaic version of French, requiring great ingenuity to translate from that time into ours. La Nef has achieved something truly remarkable in this original work. By combining original compositions, traditional tunes from the British Isles, baroque operatic styles, and period instruments, La Nef has created a lovely sense of Perceval’s journey into manhood, and into magic. Everything about this production is spot on, from the quality of the sound to the arrangements to the vocal performances.
By using the earliest written version of the Perceval story, La Nef takes us back to the world of Welsh knights, and a Welsh Arthur’s court. Perceval begins his journey bv leaving his mother’s home, after meeting some of Arthur’s knights in the forest, leaving his mother fainting at the door of their home. He travels to King Arthur’s court, where he defeats a knight who has insulted the King, and on to rescue the beautiful Blanche Fleur from marauding knights. In Vol. 1, Perceval wins fame by sending the defeated knights back to Arthur, and becomes Blanche Fleur’s lover. But his liason with the beautiful maiden reminds him of his mother’s sorrow at their parting, and his disregard for her fears that would follow his father and brothers to death in battle. His solution is to immediately abandon Blanche Fleur to search for his mother, and his home, a journey that leads him to a surreal wilderness world inhabited by monsters, demons, accusing hags, and a mysterious wounded King, the Fisher King, in search of the Grail. The opera ends with Perceval confronting his shortcomings, with the help of a hermit in the forest, and vowing to continue the search for the Grail. Ultimately Perceval is searching for his own soul, for redemption from his callow treatment of his mother and his lover, and his inept behavior in the Fisher King’s castle, when a simple question about the mysterious Grail would have restored the kingdom, which has become a wasteland. This version of the story retains a great deal of what many scholars assume is the oral version of the story, believed to have been popular in both the Wales and Norman England. Here the Grail is much less a Christian symbol than it is symbolic of the life force that must be restored to heal the Fisher King’s land. As well, Arthur’s court does not yet have all the romantic trappings that it would so quickly acquire when the story was taken up by later French writers. Now, one word of caution — this opera is sung in French, so non-Francophone listeners may not appreciate the finer points of dialogue. But they are likely to appreciate the music.
La Nef draws on several British Isles traditions for the melodies used to set Chrétien’s words to music. The melodies are played using instruments more often found in folk music (harp, penny whistle, bass viol, early guitar, dulcimers) or medieval music (shawm, recorders, santur, assorted percussion). But the vocals are clearly reflective of a classical musical tradition, giving this a very unique aspect — the sound equivalent of wandering into a William Morris pre-Raphaelite painting. La Nef is made up of Daniel Taylor (counter-tenor – Perceval), Claire Gignac (contralto – The Lady Widow, recorders, percussion), Viviane Le Blanc (soprano – Blanchefleur), Catherine Herrmann (soprano – A Young Maid, dulcimers), Rafik Samman (baritone – Arthur), Nicolas Lemieux (tenor – The Red Knight), Betsy MacMillan (bass viol, treble viol), Robin Grenon (harp), Eric Mercier (shawm, penny whistle), and Sylvain Bergeron (early guitar). This album will appeal to fans of the folk music of the British Isles, early music, and the broader world of classical music. For the folk music listener, Perceval may seem like the sound track of a movie that one has somehow missed, a fine grained, satin version of familiar, home-spun music.
Much of the odd familiarity of Perceval comes from the melodies that have been adapted, bent, and reworked to give life to Chrétien’s poem. “The Star of the County Down” figures prominently in Vol. 1, which charts Perceval’s journey through the ordinary world of reality, as he leaves home, passes tests of his manhood, and acquires a lover. Other tunes include “Flowers of the Forest,” “Dehors longre,” Carolan’s “O’Reilly of Athcarne,” and “Morrison’s Jig.” “The Star of the County Down” returns in Vol. 2, which follows Perceval’s journey into the otherworld of the Fisher King, and on his quest for the Grail. Other familiar melodies include “The Cuckoo,” “Ca’ the Ewes,” “To the Knowes” and “The Farewell of the Men of Aberffraw” among others. The original compositions blend seamlessly with these works, and it is only when a tune seems familiar that it becomes obvious that this was not all composed to bring Chrétien’s poem to life. Not surprisingly, Vol. 2 has a more ethereal feel, while Vol. 1 is a bit more earthy and immediate.
Although Vol. 2 was just released, I highly recommend both albums, as they make a nice whole when played together. As well, the packaging is lovely and gives a fair bit of background on the development of the Perceval project. Perceval is simply lovely — to be enjoyed with a fine wine in a room with great acoustics. It transports the listener into a finer world than the one we often see around us, and belongs on the shelf of anyone with a fondness for early music creatively interpreted using available material from old texts and instruments, from folk music melodies to original compositions.
(Dorian, 1999 and 2001)
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