It is rare to hear a full Lay in a performance.
The long poems in a strange old tongue are difficult to comprehend nowadays so these Lay's turn into a misterious ancient form of storytelling.
Although we might not fully understand, we can exercise our attention and focus by finding interesting details and nuances or simply by listening to it as a sort of meditation.
Ne say comment commencier
Un tres dous lay
Pour bon Amour mercier
De l’espoir qu’ay
Et pour ma dame
au corps gay
Glorifier et loer;
Car trop po scay
Pour telle ouevre edifier.
Pour ce leur vueil supplier
D’umble cuer vray
Que me vueillent octrier
Sans lonc delay
Leur grace; car je n’aray
Bon jour entier
Jamais se d’elles ne l’ay
Ou tous me vueille emploier.
I don’t know how to begin
a very sweet lay
in order to thank Good Love for the hope that I have;
and in order to glorify and praise
my lady’s merry body;
because I know too little to build such a work.
That’s why I would like to beg them
with a humble true heart
that they accept to grant me without long delay
their mercy; because I won’t ever have
an entire good day, if I don’t have mercy from them,
whom I would like to devote myself.
Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
Clara Brunet, voice
Fiona Kizzie Lee, medieval recorder
Vera Schnider, harp
29th May 2019
Basel, Switzerland