Gothic Voices - Hildegard Von Bingen: A Feather On The Breath Of God (1982)

More music by 12th century abbess and polymath Hildegard Von Bingen (in this case the British record label anglicized her name, but I'm keeping the 'Von' just for consistency's sake) in a sublime, early full-digital recording that helped put the fledgling Hyperion Records on the map.  

 

The Gothic Voices ensemble are never featured en masse, but instead the album picks out small groups and soloists in a nice varied running order.  A few tracks also have underpinning drones, either from reeds or a symphony (an early hurdy-gurdy).  All of it presents Von Bingen's haunting compositions in gorgeous clarity, the album going on to win a Gramophone Award and firmly establishing Von Bingen in the public consciousness.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Antiphona

Katharina Lienhart & Christoph Maria Moosmann - Hildegard Von Bingen: Antiphona: Liturgie Für Gesang Und Orgel (1998)

Music based on compositions by Benedictine abbess Hildegard Von Bingen (c. 1098-1179), arranged for voice and organ by soprano Katharina Lienhart and organist Christoph Maria Moosmann, to mark 900 years since the (approximate) birth of the composer, visionary and polymath.  

 

Three lengthy tracks and three short ones make for a bewitching hour-plus of well-arranged atmospheric music, with slowly developing dynamics from the organ - if your hearing's as bad as mine, some passages are virtually inaudible unless cranked right up.  When they reach full crescendo though, the organ drones (occasionally bringing to mind organ work by Ligeti or Jarrett) and ghostly vocal sound incredible.  More Hildegard Von Bingen next week.

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Tomás Luis De Victoria - Requiem, Officum Defunctorum (Gabrieli Consort/Paul McCreesh) (1995)

 

Late-Renaissance choral music in a masterful recording by the Gabrieli Consort led by Paul McCreesh, the plaintive singing bathed in the natural reverb of Brinkburn Priory, Northumberland.  Victoria (1548-1611) was the most significant composer associated with the Counter-Reformation in Spain, and was a contemporary of Palestrina.  Working for a while under the patronage of Empress Maria of Austria, Victoria composed this funeral mass on the Empress' death in 1603.  Beautifully sombre music, plus grinning skeleton cover, equals the perfect package.

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The Hilliard Ensemble - Transeamus (2014)

Sticking with vocal music today, but slimming down from full choir to a distinguished quartet.  The Hilliards drew their forty-year career to a sublime close with this album, giving it a fitting title alluding to travelling on.  Conceived as a return to their roots, the album is a programme of English motets and carols from the 15th century, with only four composers known for sure, the rest anonymous.  As expected from this esteemed ensemble, all of these fourteen pieces are deftly performed, starkly beautiful and perfectly captured in the ambience of the St. Gerold monastery in the Alps.  Relax and enjoy an hour of pure timeless bliss.

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Previously posted at SGTG:

Perotin

The Lamentations Of Jeremiah

Codex Speciálník

The Hilliard Ensemble - Perotin (1989)

As a follow-up to the Tallis album posted just before Christmas (link below), here's another heavenly hour with the Hilliards in one of their best-known releases.  Little is known about the actual person who history records as Magister Perotinus, other than that he was part of the Notre Dame school of polyphony around the late 12th century, and pioneered four-voice writing in organum.

As always, the Hilliard Ensemble are more than up to the task of making this ancient music shine in all its hypnotic, droning and swirling glory, and three pieces by writers lost to time fill out the programme of those attributed to Pérotin.  The liner notes quote no less an authority on droning, swirling music than Steve Reich, who credits this music with part of the inspiration for the underlying 'pulse' of his Music For 18 Musicians.

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Hilliard Ensemble previously posted at SGTG: 
Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah
Codex Speciálnik

Thomas Tallis - The Lamentations Of Jeremiah (The Hilliard Ensemble, 1987)

Thought this would make a good follow-up to Current 93 - a nice wintry blast of renaissance polyphony, from the pen of Tallis (1505-1585), and sung in this September 1986 recording by the peerless Hilliard Ensemble.  The austere brilliance of the pure vocal blend reverberating around All Hallows Church, London, is of course perfectly captured by this ECM New Series recording, and the four voices nail each and every nuance of the interlocking lines.  Despite the album title, Tallis' Mass For Four Voices is arguably the highlight here, showing how deftly the composer could move with the times and the changing demands of the crown and the church, making utterly timeless music.

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Hilliard Ensemble previously posted at SGTG: Codex Speciálnik

Merry Christmas!

Have a great one tomorrow.

If you fancy a nice bit of unaccompanied choral relaxation, here's the Christmas concert given by the Tallis Scholars a week and half ago, in London's Temple Church.

Programme:

Palestrina: Hodie Christus natus est
Palestrina: Missa Hodie Christus natus est (Kyrie and Gloria)
Muhly: Premiere
Nesbett: Magnificat
Palestrina: Missa Hodie Christus natus est (Credo, Sanctus and Agnus dei)
Byrd: Lullaby
H. Praetorius: Magnificat V (with In dulci jubilo)
link, no pw.

Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcelli / Missa Brevis (rec. 1988)

Founded in England in 1980, Hyperion Records have been keen on early music and Renaissance music right from the start, and have since become an institution in the world of classical recordings.  Also, an absolute ton of their early CDs seem to turn up in charity shops near me, meaning that these great recordings can be had for a couple of quid.  Or, in this case, £1.50.

Giovanni Pierluigi Da Palestrina (ca. 1525-1594) was one of the most celebrated and influential composers of the Roman School of Rennaissance polyphony, and sounds pretty damn heavenly on two of his most famous masses represented here.  The text is crystal clear (one of the church's bones of contention at the time; Palestrina was adept at keeping in line whilst still producing music more sophisticated than most of his contemporaries) and the Westminster choir sound pretty damn angelic.  One for anyone who enjoyed the Hilliard disc I posted a little while ago, or indeed for anyone wanting to luxuriate in some of the most beautiful sounds on earth.

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The Hilliard Ensemble - Codex Speciálník (rec. 1993, rel. 1995)

Been making an effort to be less self-consciously modernist in the classical stuff I listen to this past week, so in a break from the normal '20th century classical' tag, here's something from the 14th and earlier.  The title of this collection refers to the 'special songbook', a manuscript found in a Prague monastery and dated to around 1500, and a rich source of medieval-renaissance polyphonic vocal music.

Singing selections from the mostly anonymous songbook (only 8 of the 25 pieces here have composer credits) are the Hilliard Ensemble, who called time on their four-decade career just over two years ago, and appeared on over 20 ECM releases.  Celebrated specialists in early music, the Hilliards perform here with their customary expertise, authenticity and solemn, austere beauty.

This is a well-sequenced album too - not sure if it follows the order of the book, or was just done this way for the recording, but the 77-minute CD has all the shortest pieces up front, making the actual halfway-point of the album midway through track 17.  But this doesn't really matter much if you just let yourself get lost in the pure sound.

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