Publisher's description:
The Orlando Consort performs the music of Machaut, the most significant French poet and composer of the fourteenth century. Sometimes described as ‘the last of the trouvères' because of his dual talents as poet and musician, Machaut built on past traditions yet spearheaded a new school of lyric composition. In the field of literature, he developed several of the poetic forms and genres that dominated for generations to come. His impact on the musical life of his age was equally profound; he is closely associated with the new style of polyphonic love-song that became so popular in the fourteenth century, and today is considered the supreme representative of the Ars nova musical tradition that revolutionized composition and notation in that period.
Livre dou Voir Dit (‘Book of the True Tale') is Machaut's masterpiece. By its very title, the tale purports to be autobiographical: it relates a supposedly recent episode in the ageing poet-composer's life, his love affair with a lady some forty years his junior.

'Le Voit Dit is considered the masterpiece of the 14th-century French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. Whether or not it is a 'true' or autobiographically accurate tale, as the title implies, the nine songs embedded in Machaut's anthology of verse and music speak plaintively and in a personal way of the pains and pleasures of love. Hauntingly and mellifluously sung by the four (but sometimes solo) voices of the Orlando Consort, this music still sounds as flavoursome as it must have done 650 years ago' (The Daily Telegraph)
'Here is a project for which Machaut fans have been waiting for a long time … this is an important and rewarding album that any lover of Medieval music will want to own' (International Record Review)

Tracks:
1. Plourés dames  [6'49]
2. Dame, se vous n'avez aperceü  [3'41]
3. Ne que on porroit  [7'34]
4. Sans cuer dolens  [4'38]
5. Longuement me sui tenus 'Le lay de Bon Esperance'  [21'02]
6. Dis et sept, cinq  [4'34]
7. Puis qu'en oubli  [1'45]
8. Quant Theseus / Ne quier veoir  [6'56]
9. Se pour ce muir  [7'27]