With their latest recording‚ Alla Francesca lead us into a dream world. Each group of songs is introduced by colourful readings of short extracts from the great romance that soon became a popular and powerful influence in the Middle Ages and beyond. The readings take us through a sequence of episodes from the story: the poet describes how at the age of 19 he fell into a deep sleep and had a dream that told in great detail the account of his pursuit of the seemingly inaccessible Rose‚ his trials and anxieties‚ but also his determination and his joy. This delicate analysis of the whole process of courtly love‚ the young man’s progress through the Garden‚ his imprisonment in the Tower of Bel Accueil‚ right through to his final ambiguous conquest is expressed here‚ not only in the words of the poem‚ but also in both the words and the music of medieval reverdies‚ motets‚ ballades and rondeaux‚ chosen from a repertoire of trouvères and composers from the 13th to the 15th century: Adam de la Halle‚ Jean de Lescurel‚ Guillaume de Machaut‚ Binchois and Dufay. It is the replacing of the music within its dream context of insubstantial fantasy‚ mingling human experience with medieval thought‚ folly with reason‚ that makes this recording so magical and riveting. Pierre Bourhis is a remarkable narrator as well as a singer: his accent and vocal quality set the scene admirably. Emmanuel Bonnardot holds the whole musical texture together with his vièle‚ and Pierre Hamon delights with his dexterity on the bagpipes and recorder. Brigitte Lesne and Anne Quentin are in top form‚ and within the diaphanous context of the dream it doesn’t really matter that they sing with female voices the words of the young male lover: the alternation of high and low seems somehow to increase the imaginative reality/unreality of the dream‚ the ‘amour et pais hayneuse’‚ the ‘despairing love’‚ the ‘heavy burden that is light to handle’. It is particularly fitting that a French ensemble has had the excellent initiative to produce this first­rate recording.