In 1996, the French Arion label instituted a low-cost series of reissues under the rubric "L'Art du...[place name of musical instrument here]." Included was an Ensemble Perceval album of medieval instrumental music, which, conveniently, had always borne the title L'Art du Luth au Moyen Age (The Art of the Lute in the Middle Ages), though its initial release was on an Arion LP in 1980; it also appeared on vinyl in the United States by the Musical Heritage Society the following year. It features Guy Robert on Arab lute, medieval lute (in a reconstruction built by Claude Latars in 1976), and a Saracen guitar in a program made up of various dances and intabulated motets from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Perceval co-leader Guy Robert was one of the first musicians, after
Thomas Binkley, in the early music revival to try to make some practical sense of the theorized relationship between Arabic and medieval Western music, a connection first proposed by Harry George Farmer in 1925. In the Middle Ages, contact between the Arabic world and Europe was more or less continuous, owing to trade, warmongering, and the exchange of information between scholars; some medieval Western theoretical treatises are only known through Arabic copies.
Of course, since 1979 -- when L'Art du Luth au Moyen Age was recorded --
Jordi Savall and others have managed to pilot and, to some measure, drive home the concept of medieval West meets Middle East. In the wake of
Savall's work, such as in his seminal AliaVox album Orient-Occident (2006), Robert and Perceval's realizations appear, in some respects, comparatively quaint. Slow and quiet sections tend to drag a bit, and faster and louder ones tend to sound a bit too conspicuously arranged, lending a slightly arch aspect to these interpretations that they wouldn't have had in 1979. On the other hand, there are aspects of L'Art du Luth au Moyen Age that were innovative at the time and continue to sound quite fresh. Perhaps taking a page from
Binkley's book here, also, Robert really stretches these dances out; Chanconetta Tedescha No. 1, which runs to about 14 measures in score, is expanded to more than 10 minutes' duration here. That's quite a difference from the standard a decade before, when a typical, recorded medieval dance consisted of the short original melody, repeated obbligato fashion in a repetitive loop for about one or two minutes, and then cut off with the rattle of a tambourine. At the center of the storm is Robert, who was -- and still is -- an expert lutenist, playing as well as he has ever done on records; after all, the lute is the main attraction here. While perhaps not all aspects of L'Art du Luth au Moyen Age have aged so well, the essential ones still count; if you like medieval dance music in the long form, Guy Robert and Perceval's version of Chanconetta Tedescha No. 1 will rock your world.