A Life Well Travelled

Vincent Dumestre's ensemble Le Poeme Harmonique is very much a mainstay of the idiosyncratic Alpha label, especially since the defection to the mainstream of Christina Pluhar's L'Arpeggiata. This disc is typical fare, Carnets de Voyage by Charles Tessier. Tessier was active in the late 16th and early 17th century and was widely travelled, often leaving his native Languedoc region of France to seek fortune in England, Italy and the German states. The material featured on the disc is not entiirely by Tessier, there is a Dowland song for insance which reflects the influences that came to bear on Tessier. The songs are secular in the main and deal with that kind of chivalrous lovelorn subject matter that may have been on the verge of becoming antiquated by this time. The music similarly shows influences from various times as well as places as indicated by the "voyage" of the title. Tessier's Languedoc roots reflect earlier troubador songs, there is the Tudor English influence of Dowland and there are pieces which look ahead to the baroque era. Le Poeme Harmonique play in the most committed fashion throughout and the vocal contributions add much colourful characterisation to their parts, in some places even reminding of Orff's Carmina Burana.