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.
Besides eleven songs by Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420-1497), this disc includes two related works: the anonymous “En atendant vostre venue” from the recently-discovered Leuven Chansonnier (probably copied c. 1475 in the Loire Valley, where Ockeghem lived and worked), whose text borrows the first line of Ockeghem’s "Quant de vous seul", and "Au travail suis" by the composer Barbingant, which quotes both text and music from the opening of Ockeghem’s "Ma maistresse".
Ockeghem was one of the most celebrated musicians of the fifteenth century and is one of the greatest composers of all time, every bit the equal of J.S. Bach in contrapuntal technique and profound expressivity, and like Bach able to combine the most rigorous intellectual structure with a beguiling sensuality. His two dozen songs set French lyric poetry in the courtly forms of the fifteenth century—rondeau, virelai, and ballade—to exquisitely crafted polyphony in which all voices are granted equally beautiful and compelling melodies.
The CD booklet contains complete texts and translations and notes on the music and performance practice by Sean Gallagher (musicological adviser for "Ockeghem@600", Blue Heron’s project to perform the complete works of Johannes Ockeghem in a series of thirteen concert programs) and Blue Heron’s music director Scott Metcalfe.
Includes unlimited streaming of Johannes Ockeghem Complete Songs Vol. 1
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Permanent vierge, plus digne que nesune,
Femme couverte du soleil de justice,
Chief couronné par divin artifice
De douze estoiles, supeditant la lune:
Esmerveillant nature et loy commune,
Tu enfantas par supernel office,
Permanent vierge, plus digne que nesune,
Femme couverte du soleil de justice.
Preordonnée sans differance aucune
Du redempteur fille, mere et nourrice,
Soiez pour nous advocate propice,
Toy supplions, tres belle, clere, brune,
Permanent vierge, plus digne que nesune …
tenor i
Pulcra es et decora, filia Jherusalem:
terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata.
tenor ii
Sancta dei genitrix, virgo semper Maria,
intercede pro nobis ad dominum Jhesum Christum.
"A woman clothed with the sun
and the moon beneath her feet"
Permanent virgin, more worthy than any other,
woman clothed with the sun of justice,
head crowned by divine artifice
with twelve stars, standing above the moon:
Astounding nature and earthly law,
you bore a child by supernal action,
Permanent virgin, more worthy than any other,
woman clothed with the sun of justice.
Preordained without any distinction
the redeemer’s daughter, mother, and nurse,
be a propitious advocate for us,
we beseech you, most lovely, radiant, burnished,
Permanent virgin, more worthy than any other …
tenor i
Fair and comely art thou, O daughter of Jerusalem:
terrible as an army arrayed for battle.
tenor ii
Holy mother of God, ever-virgin Mary,
intercede for us with the lord Jesus Christ.
credits
from Johannes Ockeghem Complete Songs Vol. 1,
released November 1, 2019
Martin Near, Jason McStoots, Sumner Thompson, David McFerrin and Paul Guttry, voices
Engineering and mastering: Joel Gordon
Producer: Scott Metcalfe
Editing: Eric Milnes & Joel Gordon
Assistant Session Producers: Michael Barrett, Eric Milnes & Martin Near
Graphic Design: Melanie Germond
Cover photo: Young Woman with a Pink, c. 1485-90, attributed to Hans Memling (d. 1494, Bruges), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437059)
Recorded at Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill
September 29-October 2 & October 28-30, 2018
Music composed by Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420-1497). All songs edited from original sources by Scott Metcalfe.
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
supported by 10 fans who also own “Permanent vierge / Pulcra es / Sancta dei genitrix”
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supported by 9 fans who also own “Permanent vierge / Pulcra es / Sancta dei genitrix”
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supported by 9 fans who also own “Permanent vierge / Pulcra es / Sancta dei genitrix”
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