ECM Records AMBROSE FIELD, JOHN POTTER - BEING DUFAY CD

British tenor John Potter and fellow countryman Ambrose Field, composer of electronic/digital music, offer a striking juxtaposition of Renaissance music and present-day technology: In seven interconnected pieces, vocal fragments from the songs and sacred works by Guillaume Dufay (1397–1474) soar beautifully above Ambrose Field’s vast and multi-faceted soundscapes. “Then as now, music was not forever fixed but lived and breathed through the imaginations of former musicians and their listeners”, writes Field in his liner notes for “Being Dufay”.

Potter’s voice immerses itself with great ease in the allusively processed sounds. Amrose Field: “The fragments of original Dufay are always presented entirely unaltered, and serve as a reference point or cantus firmus within what is new. From that new perspective, I wanted to explore the limits of the electronic medium, and produce a new set of musical colours.”