Germany's
Estampie is difficult to classify. With a big sound forged by microphones, it certainly is not typical of ensembles playing the German and French medieval tunes that appear on this sampling of the group's recordings; some serious medieval music lovers have been angered by its work.
Estampie employs a large drum and a battery of other percussion that are miked close up and come out plenty loud. If you don't pay close attention, the percussion instruments sound like an electronic pop rhythm track. Yet this is no German version of the
Mediæval Bæbes. There's something vast and primitive about
Estampie's music; the group makes no particular attempt to sound pleasant, and it retains the metrical complexities of the tunes (at least insofar as they are understood at this late date) rather than shaving them down. With the almost invariant tonality of the music, it would appear to have been touched by American minimalism, especially by its easy adaptability to theatrical presentation, and, despite the modernistic sheen to performances, the group has been open to world music, to the connections between medieval European music and its Middle Eastern and Asian sources. Most of the music is vocal, with the ethereal voice of soprano Sigrid Hausen soaring above the rhythms and perhaps a full-throated all-male choir, but sample the instrumental Estampie V, track 8, for an idea of what you're getting into here. The cover of this disc promises a selection of music from 1986 to 2006, but that's not quite what you get;
Estampie didn't make its first recording until 1990, and the earliest recording excerpted here, Ludus Danielis, dates from 1994. You don't hear how
Estampie, which started out as a conventional medieval ensemble, developed its unique style. Ludus Danielis is
Estampie's take on the medieval Play of Daniel, and the motor rhythms seem to interfere somewhat with the spirit of that and the other religious works included; the rhythms are better suited to the secular tunes, which, one could argue, were nasty, brutish, and short to begin with and aren't damaged by this high-volume performance. In short: if you like modern electronic dance music, you ought to be delighted by these technically adept performances. If you believe that medieval culture is so remote from our own that it can be rediscovered only by radical reinterpretation, well, they don't get much more radical than this. If you are aware of what constitutes informed speculation as to what medieval music actually sounded like,
Estampie will probably rub you the wrong way. But if you're coming from the minimalist corner, this may well seem to be overflowing with delightful ideas. What you get out of
Estampie depends on what you bring to the music, but everybody should probably hear it once, and a sampler of this kind offers the perfect chance to do that.