Early music played on authentic organs, compiled by Hans Beek.
This time not the Organ Work program but a new episode of Documento. Today we delve into the treasury of English Church music. An anthology of English church music, starting from the twelfth century till the seventeenth century.
We start with the anonymous motet “Sancte Dei pretiose” from the early twelfth century, which probably is the earliest example of English liturgical polyphony that has come down to us. We will listen to 16th century motets from Thomas Tomkins and Thomas Morley, among others, as well as to the motets from the Old Hall Manuscript — a 15th century gradual, the largest and most complete collection of English Medieval polyphony. We will close with 17th century music by John Blow and Pelham Humfrey.
Anonymous (12th and 14th century)
1. Sancte Dei pretiose
2. Salve sancta parens
3. Ave miles caelestis curiae
4. Conditor alme siderum
Queldryk
5. Gloria
J. Excetre
6. Sanctus and Benedictus
Walter Frye (-ca. 1475)
7. Salve virgo mater pia
Ambrosian Singers conducted by Denis Stevens
Thomas Morley (1557/8-1602)
8. Out of the deep
Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
9. Nunc dimittis
William Mundi (ca. 1528- ca. 1591)
10. Ah helpless wretch
Grayston Burgess and John Whitworth, countertenor. Choir of Westminster Abbey conducted by Douglas Guest
John Blow (1649-1708)
11. Salvator Mundi
Pelham Humfrey (1647/8-1674)
12. O Lord my God
Michael Vale, countertenor. Robert Hammersley, tenor. John Barrow, baritone. Choir of Westminster Abbey. Choir of Guilford Cathedral with chamber orchestra conducted by Barry Rose
(5CDs The Treasury of English Church Music, EMI Classics 0 84640 2, 2011)
Image: Westminster Abbey in London (source: Brittannica.com)
