Excerpts from the artist's website: The Canadian hurdy gurdy player, recorderist and singer, Tobie Miller, grew up in a family of classical musicians. After studies in Early Music Performance (B.Mus) at McGill University (Montreal, Canada), she moved to Basel (Switzerland) to pursue postgraduate studies at the prestigious Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Aufbaustudium Diplom with High Distinction, … Continue reading Tobie Miller : Bach on the Hurdy Gurdy
The Dowland Project began as an artistic collaboration between John Potter and ECM's Manfred Eicher, and was an attempt to re-discover the essence of renaissance song from the point of view of a modern performer. John suggested Dowland and Manfred Eicher proposed augmenting the obligatory early music players with jazz musicians. The first recording for … Continue reading John Potter and The Dowland Project
The seven Penitential Psalms are a group of Psalms, numbers 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 in the Anglican numbering (in the Vulgate all except Psalm 6 are numbered one digit lower), which have been in liturgical use for penitential prayer since early Christian times and, in the later Middle Ages, were prescribed … Continue reading Orlande de Lassus : dare spirito alle parole
The Orlando Consort has paused their traversal of the songs of Guillaume de Machaut (their intention to record them all has yielded three CDs so far) and devoted their latest release to charting the radical development of music between the late thirteenth and mid fifteenth centuries—the transition from what is at essence embellished chant to … Continue reading The Orlando Consort’s latest : the radical development of music between the late-13th and mid 15th centuries
John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir did something pretty special in 2004. They attempted the pilgrimage to Santiago as it might have occurred in the Renaissance period. Gardiner said at the outset: This will be our 40th anniversary year, and I cannot envisage a more fitting way of celebrating this milestone than by undertaking … Continue reading John Eliot Gardiner : el Camino de Santiago
Ensemble Gilles Binchois, Dominique Vellard Anne-Marie Lablaude, Brigitte Lesne, Susanne Norin, Emmanuel Bonnardot, Willem de Waal, Pierre Hamon, Randall Cook In fact, with the royal family's increasingly frequent visits to Paris and the development of the university, Paris became the focus of a vital flowering that attracted the greatest artists, musicians, scholars, and theologians to Europe's leading cultural center. From all … Continue reading Les Escholiers de Paris : Motets, Songs & Estampies of the Thirteenth Century
What did it mean for Guillaume Du Fay (ca. 1397-1474), chameleon-like expert in every musical genre of his day, to compose four settings of the Mass Ordinary toward the end of his life? Looking back from the vantage point of the next generation, when the polyphonic mass reigned supreme, it might be tempting to interpret … Continue reading Guillaume Du Fay: The Tenor Masses (Les messes à teneur)
A couple of recent and noteworthy recordings from Hyperion: more Machaut by The Orlando Consort, and the final installment from John Potter, Christopher O’Gorman and Rogers Covey-Crump, of the Conductus genre, the first experiments towards polyphony—the kind of sound we associate with Pérotin. A Burning Heart, Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-1377) Formed in 1988 by the … Continue reading New from Hyperion : Machaut and Conductus
Philippe de Vitry was a renowned poet, music theorist, composer, diplomat, and bishop. Along with Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377), he is emblematic of the French fourteenth century—a pivotal era in the history of Western music and poetry, and one in which he flourished as an influential public intellectual and early humanist. But while Machaut … Continue reading Philippe de Vitry : Early Music Innovator
Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500-1553) was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance. He is generally considered to be the one most influential Spanish composer, who, together with Tomás Luis de Victoria and Francisco Guerrero, is recognized as one of the three most important Spanish composers of the 16th century. Almost all of his music is … Continue reading Cristóbal de Morales : “Officium Defunctorum”- Jordi Savall
Musica Kaleidoskopea 