Trio Mediaeval: Soir, dit-elle

By WILLIAM DART

Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth, and Torunn Ostrem Ossum are names to wrestle with, names one would pluck up courage to bandy about in public, but ... you're lucky. These three Norwegian singers are happy to go under the collective moniker of Trio Mediaeval.

Trio Mediaeval's first CD, Words of the Angel, was their inspirational debut; three years on, we now have the long-awaited sequel in Soir, dit-elle.

The new album features the same meticulous blend of ancient and modern. On this disc a Missa Alma Redemptoris Mater by the 15th-century composer Leonel Power has its movements punctuated by the works of contemporary composers such as Gavin Bryars, Andrew Smith, Ivan Moody and Oleh Harkavyy.

The mysterious record sleeve gives no indication of track-by-track details and purist Power fans may need to programme players so his Mass can progress without interruption.

For most, however, Soir, dit-elle will be 63 minutes of sonic bewitchment - chill-out with class and without compromise.

Performances first. They don't come better than these. The opening bars of Harkavyy's Kyrie reveal seamless unisons yet, when each woman has a solo chant by Bryars, individual personalities show through. So they do with the three-part vocal texture in general, where the listener is constantly seduced by telling details that might have been less apparent in a richer texture.

If you are into Machaut, Dufay and Dunstable then Power's Mass is ample reason to chase up this album. If early renaissance music is still on your lists of "to be done", try it out and you're sure to yield to its billowing lines, piquant cadences and meditative sense of space.

The contemporary offerings fit in well with the trance-like atmosphere that the Mass often engenders. Bryars focuses on the modest eloquence of solo voice, Andrew Smith, the youngest composer at 34, who unfurls chains of sensuous harmonies.

The most telling journey is in the nine minutes of Ivan Moody's A Lion's Sleep. This is Mary's Lament, as told by St Simeon Metaphrastes and translated by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The British composer is unerring in his response to images of great poetic power.

ECM's attention to sound is legendary and, on this occasion, the production seat has been occupied by John Potter, a noted scholar and tenor whose two Dowland Project albums (also on ECM) are well worth investigating.

* Trio Mediaeval, Soir, dit-elle(ECM 1869, through Ode Records)