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A Renaissance Christmas

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CORO CORO Song of the Nativity cor16146 A Renaissance “The Sixteen’s consummate technical ability has long been legendary, but it’s their ability to Christmas conceal it which is truly special. It puts the music front and centre, in this beautifully realised Christmas sequence.” bbc music magazine Christus Natus Est cor16027 “A sublime Gloria by Sheppard ... and, finest of all, Byrd’s Lullaby in a masterly performance.” gramophone To find out more about The Sixteen, concert tours, and to buy CDs visit The Sixteen www.thesixteen.com cor16167 HARRY CHRISTOPHERS hristmas is that most laudibus) is one of the earliest examples of a Christmas song and was clearly C important season of the one of the most popular tunes for this festive season. Listen to the way Eccard, year when love and hope prevail. Handl and Lassus all put their own individual stamp on it. When programming Above all, it is a time for families, this compilation, I was astounded by the variety of sound worlds. Tallis’s Videte and we hope that this collection miraculum and Sheppard’s Reges Tharsis represent that distinctive English sonority: of Renaissance motets will bring lengthy responds where the polyphony traces around the plainsong chant the spirit of Christmas into your delivered in long note values underpinning the whole texture like a perfectly Photograph: Marco Borggreve Marco Photograph: home. There is no better age for weaved tapestry; the madrigalian feel of Byrd’s ebullient This day Christ was born glorious sacred music than the and Dering’s Quem vidistis, pastores? compared to the spiritual fervour created by Renaissance. Europe abounded in Victoria and Guerrero’s settings. And then there is the poignancy of Kirbye’s Vox outstanding composers: Byrd and in Rama, depicting the tragic and chilling side of Holy Innocents, set against the Tallis from England, Guerrero sheer pageantry and celebration at the appearance of the Three Kings in Lassus’ and Victoria from Spain and a double-choir setting of Omnes de Saba venient’. plethora of Flemish composers such as Sweelinck and Lassus. All It only remains for us to wish you all a very happy Christmas where peace, love these composers and the others and goodwill may prosper. represented on this album show a wealth of glorious polyphony and inventiveness. We take you right through the Christmas season, from Advent to the birth of Christ, Holy Innocents and the Three Kings. Threaded through the album is the recurrent theme of Resonet in laudibus; its original 14th-century tune (Resonemus 2 3 1 14th Century Resonemus laudibus 1.25 bm Jacob Handl Resonet in laudibus 1.18 (1550-91) 2 J. P. Sweelinck Hodie Christus natus est 2.53 (1562-1621) bn Tomás Luis de Victoria Quem vidistis, pastores? 4.43 (1548-1611) 3 Jacob Handl Omnes de Saba venient 1.30 (1550-91) bo Orlande de Lassus Resonet in laudibus 3.41 (1532-94) 4 Johannes Eccard Resonet in laudibus 1.46 (1553-1611) bp William Byrd This day Christ was born 2.32 (1543-1623) 5 Plainsong Veni, veni Emmanuel 4.01 bq John Sheppard Reges Tharsis 5.18 6 George Kirbye Vox in Rama 4.32 (c.1515-58) (c.1565-1634) br Francisco Guerrero Pastores loquebantur 5.31 7 Orlande de Lassus Videntes stellam Magi 2.49 (1528-99) (1532-94) bs Peter Philips O beatum et sacrosanctum diem 2.20 8 Thomas Tallis Videte miraculum 9.18 (1561-1628) (c.1505-85) bt Plainsong Crudelis Herodes 4.01 9 Richard Dering Quem vidistis, pastores? 2.10 (c.1580-1630) bu Orlande de Lassus Omnes de Saba venient 2.48 (1532-94) bl William Byrd O magnum mysterium/Beata Virgo 5.39 (1543-1623) Total Running Time: 67.11 Renaissance Christmas draws from a In today’s tumult of passing Twitter to discuss serious matters of doctrinal Church composers would need look A golden age of sacred music. Most of storms and online moral crusades, it and Church reform. They convened three no further for appropriate models of its harmonious contents were created in is hard to imagine the explosive force times between 1545 and 1563. A series of the expression of sacred words than the Europe at a time of discordant upheaval, of Martin Luther’s Reformation. The sessions held late in the process considered vast resource of Gregorian chant and a world-historical epoch marked by scholarly Augustinian monk, little known the Mass and its ‘true and proper’ other devotional melodies. Veni, veni religious reform and reaction, power before he sent his Ninety-five Theses representation of Christ’s sacrifice on the Emmanuel, one of a series of antiphons politics and internecine strife, radical to Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg in cross. The consequent decree included a sung at Vespers during Advent, evokes revisionism and resilient conservatism. 1517, attacked what he saw as the abuse section devoted to ‘Things to be observed the timeless certainty of ancient ritual. The great feast of Christmas served of selling indulgences, dispensations and avoided in celebrating Mass’; it also Its folk-like melody, sung here in a to remind warring Catholics and for good works or other acts of merit directed bishops to ‘keep out of their version preserved in a French missal, Protestants of the eternal Christian intended to shorten the amount of time churches the kind of music in which a captures the expectation shared by those message. Composers on both sides of the spent by the faithful Christian soul in base and suggestive element is introduced awaiting the birth of ‘God’s dear son’. It 16th century’s religious divide graced the Purgatory. His radical ideas challenged into the organ playing or singing’. An is known to date at least from the time season with intimations of the polyphony the authority of the papacy, not least by early draft asked whether polyphony, of Charlemagne, who was crowned of paradise, directing the best of human questioning why the Pope, richer than which ‘appealed more to the ear than Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo creativity to celebrate God’s promise to Crassus, needed to raise money from the spirit’, should be excluded from the III on Christmas Day 800. Crudelis mankind of salvation through his son. the poor to pay for the new St Peter’s Roman rite, a question soon revised to Herodes articulates another chapter in The nativity story, told across the winter Basilica in Rome. The Roman Catholic consider the quality of devotional music the Christmas story, where Herod’s fear seasons from Christmas to Candlemas, Church responded to the genuine threat and the imperative that it should clearly for his earthly throne is countered by the brought spiritual light to the harsh of Protestantism by convening a council, communicate sacred texts. There was Magi’s tributes to the king of heaven. material realities of a dark world. Choral at first ‘in German lands’, later in the city no mention of polyphony in the decree’s music’s part in its reiteration was in many of Trent in present-day Italy. final version; messages about the need Resonemus laudibus, written down ways inestimable yet fundamental to the for simplicity, purity and clarity, however, in the 14th century, stands among the shared experience of Christmas ritual The Council of Trent brought together spread from Trent to reach musicians earliest surviving examples of an ancient and contemplation. Catholic bishops, theologians and others working throughout the Catholic world. Christmas song. Its melody was popular 6 7 above all in Germany, where it was sung seasonal hymns were shared between church, and in the air throughout his long Handl’s setting, with its emphatic opening to one of two texts: ‘Resonet in laudibus’ separate choirs distributed around the service at the Duke of Bavaria’s Munich and fleeting scale figures, portrays the and ‘Joseph, lieber Joseph mein’. The church. The Slovenian-born Handl, court. Lassus’ Resonet in laudibus headlong rush of gift-bearers from lilting ‘Resonet’ tune ideally suited the whose German family name means belongs to a trio of Christmas motets the biblical kingdom of Sheba, widely medieval cradle-rocking tradition, ‘little rooster’, was a master of polychoral for five voices published in Munich in associated by modern scholars with practised at first by nuns in the Rhineland composition who attracted criticism 1569. The composition strikes a fine southern Arabia. Lassus combines two and later introduced to the services of during his lifetime for his counterpoint’s balance between textual clarity, helped choirs of four voices each for his setting Vespers and Matins at Christmas in complexity. His Resonet is distinguished at first by the prominent projection of of the same. The result, published in Germany and the Netherlands. by the restraint of its chordal harmony the popular Christmas melody, and a Nuremberg in 1590, moves from a state and the contrasting contrapuntal shrewd blend of syllabic declamation of tranquillity to one of ecstasy, inviting Johannes Eccard, who became exuberance invested in its rapid-fire and contrapuntal virtuosity, heard later mind and heart to cultivate unconditional Kapellmeister to the Elector of Brandenburg setting of the word ‘Eia’. in the work. Lassus displays comparable joy at Christ’s incarnation. in the early 1600s, employed Lutheran creative individuality in his setting of chorales as foundation stones for much Eccard’s teacher Orlande de Lassus was Videntes stellam Magi, the Magnificat Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck attracted a of his sacred polyphony. His Resonet in born in the Franco-Flemish province antiphon for Epiphany. The motet, which loyal following for the improvisations he laudibus setting for five voices opens of Hainaut, home to many outstanding dates from the composer’s early years in performed twice daily during his long with a hymn-like harmonisation of the names in Renaissance music.
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