This disc comes in an attractive 4-panel wallet-style format, with a CD sleeve. There is no plastic tray, which makes for a greener (and more lightweight) package. The CD allows listeners to share the beauty, excitement, intensity and variety found in a Blue Heron concert performance. It includes plainchant, carols, and other music for Advent and Christmas from 15th-century England. It is comprised entirely of tracks recorded live at First Church in Cambridge, Congregational in December 2013.
The package includes a booklet with notes by Music Director Scott Metcalfe.
Including unlimited streaming of Christmas in Medieval England via the free bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Includes unlimited streaming of Christmas in Medieval England
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 5 days
$20USDor more
lyrics
i.
Gaude virgo salutata angelicore latu,
mox es gravida libera omni reatu;
in te deitas humanata celesti flatu,
virgo manens illibata re et cogitatu.
Quod mirum si paveas, dum conceptus pandit,
quanto magis caveas, cum ad partum scandit.
Dum virgo permaneas, mens hec verba pandit;
dicens “Ne timeas,” te mulcendo blandit.
Nondum contentaris, cum dicit parituram:
quomodo miraris fietque curam;
nescisse virum flaris, sed semper esse puram,
credo, quod miraris, mutasse naturam.
Angelus: “Concipies de superis celestem
Deum et tu paries filium terrestrem.
In te non est caries, natum habes testem.
Leviatan insanies, hic fert tibi pestem.”
ii
Gaude virgo singularis, mater nostri salvatoris,
radix vite popularis, germen novi floris.
Ex te sumpsit hinc tu paris ampullam liquoris
que virtute aquas maris tenes stilla roris.
Dic, quo verbo concepisti, angeli vultui
“Dominus tecum” audisti dicens, “fui tui.”
Presentem conclusisti, tunc naturam sui,
Messiam invenisti de natura tui.
O celestis armonia, in hac junctione,
caro nostre cum sophia in unum persone;
qualiter ex qua via studeas colone,
hec sola mater novit pia et tu Jesu bone.
Mater heres Dei mundi redemptoris,
pia tu memento mei in extremis horis;
ne coartent mei rei, secum suis horis
et presentas faciei mei plasmatoris.
contratenor
Virgo mater comprobaris, matrem partus indicat,
claustrum ventris virginalis intactam te judicat.
Virginem cum divinalis natus ille benedicat,
celum, tellus, unda maris laudes tuas predicat.
Non est partus hic penalis qui matrem letificat.
Christus factus fraternalis sic ut exemplificat.
tenor
Ave gemma celi luminarium.
Ave Sancti Spiritus sacrarium.
Translation:
Hail virgin, greeted by the angel’s report,
pregnant yet free of all sin:
in you deity is made human by heavenly inspiration,
virgin undiminished by act or thought.
And if you tremble at the miracle while the child develops,
how much warier are you when it comes to be born.
While you remain a virgin, the mind offers these words,
and saying “Be not afraid,” charms and eases you.
You do not contest it when he says you will bear a child,
however much you wonder and are troubled.
You are proclaimed not to have known a man, but to be ever pure,
and—a thing to wonder at, surely—to have changed nature.
The angel: “You shall conceive the heavenly god
from the realms on high, and bear a child of earth.
There is no fault in you, as your son is witness.
You shall torment Leviathan, and he will plague you.”
ii
Rejoice, unique maiden, mother of our savior,
Root of the people’s life, seed of the new flower.
He drew from you, you then bear, the flask of nectar,
by your virtue you hold the sea’s waters in a drop of dew.
Say by what word you conceived! You heard,
“The Lord is with you,” and answered the angelic
countenance, “I am yours.” You contained his presence,
then his nature; you found the Messiah in your own nature.
O heavenly harmony in this joining,
flesh of our person united with Wisdom:
how and by what path you are so zealous,
these things only the pious mother knew, and you, good Jesus.
Mother and heir of God, world’s redeemer,
recall me faithfully in my last hours,
let my acts not constrain me with them in their hours,
as you show me to the face of my maker.
contratenor
You are proved the virgin mother: the birth shows the mother,
the seal of your virginal womb judges you untouched.
When your divine child blesses you as virgin,
then heaven, earth, and ocean waves preach your praises.
This birthing is no penance, it gladdens the mother.
Christ is made our brother, as his example teaches.
tenor
Hail, jewel of the lights of heaven!
Hail, sacred place of the Holy Spirit!
Winner of the 2018 Gramophone Classical Music Award for Early Music (the first non-European group to win the award), Blue
Heron (Scott Metcalfe, dir.) has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “one of the Boston music community’s indispensables” and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for the “expressive intensity” of its interpretations....more
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