The Early Music Club (EMC)

[Selig]

Now streaming, here's the booklet

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/76/000173767.pdf

Stunning O admirabile.

[San Antone]

Missing Obrecht Partbooks, a Gap Now Filled
by Karen M. Cook
Published November 24, 2024

Scaramella, The Binchois Consort, directed by Andrew Kirkman. Hyperion CDA68460

One of the perils of preserving music in partbooks, as many fans and scholars of Renaissance music know, is that one or more of the books might be lost. This is a particularly dire situation when the partbooks in question contain the only known version of a work and we can't hear it fully and as originally notated. Sometimes we get lucky: the missing book turns up ...

However, it also happens that a scholar versed in the style and practice of a given composer might try their hand at filling in the gaps.

Such is the case with musicologistPhilip Weller, who drew on his knowledge of Jacob Obrecht's style to reconstruct his fragmentary motet Mater patris – sancta dei genitrix some years ago. In 2010, he and Fabrice Fitch began similar work on Obrecht's Mass on the "Scaramella" tune, which survives only in the altus and bassus partbooks. They noted that since the Mass made use of a known cantus firmus, the tenor might be somewhat reasonably reproduced; from there, the discantus could be constructed. As Fitch notes in a related article, he and Weller made good progress, completing the two Kyries and part of the Gloria, but not much more was done until 2018, when Weller finished the Agnus Dei and part of the Sanctus.

Unfortunately, Weller passed away shortly thereafter, leaving the musicological world in mourning and the work unfinished. Fitch then completed the remainder of the Mass, which fittingly acts as the centerpiece for this new album by the Binchois Consort, Weller's frequent collaborators.

[LKB]

I've been looping this lately at times, when I feel a need to relieve stress:

[San Antone]

New from Hyperion the latest (Vol. 3) in what has been an excellent series.

Described by Early Music Review as 'an impressive master-class in how these texts should be declaimed', the third volume in the Magdalena Consort's revelatory series brings us a further eleven of these most English of English anthems—by composers John Ward, John Amner, William Stonnard, Thomas Ravenscroft, Richard Nicholson, Thomas Tomkins, William Pysing and Simon Stubbs—with accompaniment variously from Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts. (Hyperion)

In chains of gold – The English pre-Restoration verse anthem, Vol. 3
Ah, his glory! – Anthems of praise, prayer and remembrance
Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts
2025



The other two volumes are

In chains of gold – The English pre-Restoration verse anthem, Vol. 1
The complete Consort Anthems by Orlando Gibbons
Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts
2017



In chains of gold – The English pre-Restoration verse anthem, Vol. 2
William Byrd to Edmund Hooper: Psalms and Royal Anthems
Magdalena Consort, Fretwork
2020

[Que]

Todd McComb has just published on his website Medieval.org a discography of French Secular Music of the 14th Century:

https://www.medieval.org/emfaq/composers/farsnova.html

Enjoy exploring!

[prémont]

Todd McComb has just published on his website Medieval.org a discography of French Secular Music of the 14th Century:

https://www.medieval.org/emfaq/composers/farsnova.html

Enjoy exploring!

Thanks for the link. The unmanageable made a little more manageable. A quick screening tells me that I am in possession of a very large portion of the listed recordings - > 80% I would guess.

[Que]

Thanks for the link. The unmanageable made a little more manageable. A quick screening tells me that I am in possession of a very large portion of the listed recordings - > 80% I would guess.

I'm impressed! 

[Que]

Todd McComb's update on recent Early Music recordings:

https://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/remarks.html