Album

This CD represents a bold attempt to make Adam de la Halle's Le jeu de Robin et Marion (The Play of Robin and Marion, ca. 1280), perhaps the first secular music drama in the Western tradition, intelligible to a general modern audience. The English ensemble Tonus Peregrinus (the name means wandering tone and is taken from a detail of chant theory) combines a scholarly background with a desire to put the fruits of the group's scholarly labors across to nonspecialists. The most unusual detail of this recording is that the play's dialogue is not only included (the manuscripts that preserve the play contain dialogue interspersed with unaccompanied songs) but also translated into English as it goes along. As the listener hears the dialogue section (given in lightface type in the tracklist), English words are heard from singers, followed by the original medieval French from a single narrator. It sounds confusing, but the effect is no more intense for the listener than watching a foreign film and reading the subtitles. The translations are colloquial in the extreme. It's quite a surprise to hear words like "It'll be a great party if you guys come along," or even "I'm a complete fool to waste time on this bitch," coming to us across seven centuries, but of course medieval culture had a down-to-earth side to go with its mystical, numerological aspects. De la Halle's songs (listed in boldface in the tracklist) are performed with light, improvisatory accompaniment and translated in the booklet.

The result is surely the first Jeu de Robin et Marion that can be listened to by glancing at the booklet rather than keeping one's eyes glued to it. The play emerges as a fairly entertaining pastoral romance, complete with trash talk, fart jokes, romantic misunderstandings, and many of the other appurtenances of comedy as we know it today. The small instrumental group works well, and the musicians convincingly inflect de la Halle's sparse songs in the direction of romance as required.

The remainder of the music on the disc consists of further compositions by Adam de la Halle: polyphonic motets and rondeaux that conclude sections of the drama. These are given by title in lightface in the tracklist, with their titles preceded by their genre (Rondeau or Motet), plus a number. Some of them appear to be related to the action, but it's hard to tell—texts are not given for these. Despite the uncertainty over the functions of these pieces, this is the performance of Le jeu de Robin et Marion to choose if you have a general curiosity about the work. The performance gives the play the charming directness and earthiness one sometimes finds in medieval art.

© James Manheim, All Music Guide

CD 1
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...1.Motet: Robins m'aime Work Recorded 2003 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
1	1.Motet: Robins m'aime. Portare No.1	1:03			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de pelerin (The Play of the Pilgrim) (contains 2 brief refrains) Work Recorded 2003 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
2	Le jeu de pelerin (The Play of the Pilgrim) (contains 2 brief refrains)	2:46			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 1 Work Recorded 2003 12:09 John Crook Voices, Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Alexander Hickey Tenor, Kathryn Oswald Alto, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
3	1.Motet: Robins m'aime	3:02			$0.99
4	2.Le me repairoie	0:39			$0.99
5	3.Hé Robin	0:22			$0.99
6	4.(when along comes a Knight on the lookout)	4:33			$0.99
7	5.Vous perdés vo paine	0:22			$0.99
8	6.(but Marion means no when she says so)	0:30			$0.99
9	7.Bergeronnete sui	0:22			$0.99
10	8.(and the Knight leaves empty-handed)	0:12			$0.99
11	9.Trairi deluriau	2:07			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Li dous regars de me dame (rondeau a3; 2 settings) Work Recorded 2003 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
12	Li dous regars de me dame (rondeau a3; 2 settings)	1:04			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Tant con je vivrai (rondeau a3) Work Recorded 2003 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
13	Tant con je vivrai (rondeau a3)	1:40			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 2 Work Recorded 2003 14:06 John Crook Voices, Alexander L'Estrange Tambourine, Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Kathryn Oswald Alto, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
14	1.Hé Robechon leure leure va	1:09			$0.99
15	2.(and tastes some of her fare)	3:13			$0.99
16	3.Vous l'orrés bien dire	0:13			$0.99
17	4.(and tests her fidelity)	0:39			$0.99
18	5.Bergeronnete douche baisselete	1:48			$0.99
19	6.(and she tests his dancing prowess)	0:17			$0.99
20	7.Robin par l'ame	1:11			$0.99
21	8.(and Robin goes for reinforcements)	1:29			$0.99
22	9.(his manly cousins)	0:54			$0.99
23	10.Motet: De ma dame. Dieus. Omnes	3:13			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 3 Work Recorded 2003 2:56 John Crook Voices, Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
24	1.(Robin rounds up guests for the party)	1:54			$0.99
25	2.Motet: Robins m'aime. Portare No.2	1:02			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 4 Work Recorded 2003 6:45 John Crook Voices, Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Kathryn Oswald Alto, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine, Francis Brett Bass
26	1.(The Knight returns to find his bird)	2:09			$0.99
27	2.J'oi Robin flagoler	0:21			$0.99
28	3.(beats up Robin and kidnaps Marion)	2:35			$0.99
29	4.Hé resveille toi Robin	0:37			$0.99
30	5.(but Robin is aroused to the point of valour)	1:03			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Hareu, li maus a'amer (rondeau a3) Work Recorded 2003 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
31	Hareu, li maus a'amer (rondeau a3)	0:41			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 5 Work Recorded 2003 15:16 John Crook Voices, Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
32	1.(Marion sees off the Knight, her friends roll up)	3:54			$0.99
33	2.Aveuc tele compaignie (tous)	1:01			$0.99
34	3.(and it's time for all kinds of party games)	10:21			$1.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 6 Work Recorded 2003 6:29 Alexander L'Estrange Tambourine, John Crook Voices, Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
35	1.(Robin rescues a sheep, declares his love)	4:54			$0.99
36	2. J'ai encore un tel pasté	0:29			$0.99
37	3.(and promises some delicacies of his own)	0:07			$0.99
38	4.Que jou ai un tel capon	0:27			$0.99
39	5.(when she returns)	0:32			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer A Dieu commant amouretes (rondeau a3) Work Recorded 2003 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Mary Remnant Tabor, Antony Pitts Tambourine
40	A Dieu commant amouretes (rondeau a3)	2:00			$0.99
Adam de la Halle Composer Le jeu de Robin et de Marion...Scene 7 Work Recorded 2003 7:32 Tonus Peregrinus Ensemble, Antony Pitts Tambourine, Alexander L'Estrange Tambourine, Rebecca Hickey Soprano, Francis Brett Bass, Alexander Hickey Tenor, Richard Eteson Tenor, Joanna Forbes Soprano, Kathryn Oswald Alto, John Crook Voices, Mary Remnant Tabor
41	1.(Robin brings a pair of horns to the party)	2:40			$0.99
42	2.Audigier	0:07			$0.99
43	3.(gets over his jealousy and gets everyone on their feet)	1:48			$0.99
44	4.Venés apres moi	1:31			$0.99
45	5.Motet: Robins m'aime. Portare No.3	1:26			$0.99