Le Beau du Monde / A Modern View on Early Music, chant 1450 Renaissance Ensemble + Sylvain Chauveau

These recordings show a bold mix : breathtaking a cappella interpretations of the Octonaires de la Vanité du Monde by Paschal de L’Estocart (1582)and pieces from the Geneva Psalter (1562) meet the reworkings of Sylvain Chauveau. The voices of chant 1450, trained in early music, sing these pieces with lyrics about transience full of emotion and elegance.

Sylvain Chauveau processed individual pieces electronically, whereby transience remains sonically present in his always surprising versions. The reworkings do not take early music as a fixed, quasi-museum repertoire, but as a starting point for something new – everything is in flux, is reinterpreted, changes. A wonderful stream of fantastic music emerges, with ancient and contemporary music coming closer together than one might initially expect

I love takes on early music. For me, there’s always something wintry about them. This is beautiful music for cold days, ringing off imagined frosty stone.