Huelgas Ensemble - En Albion (polyphony In England

Huelgas Ensemble, Paul van Nevel

For around 40 years, Paul Van Nevel and his Huelgas Ensemble have dedicated themselves to the vocal art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. And time and again, the ensemble's founder has amazed the early music scene with rediscovered masterpieces that were often thought to have been lost for a long time. For the latest album "Albion: Medieval Polyphony in England", Van Nevel has selected English a cappella works from the late Middle Ages, all of them by anonymous composers. He discovered the manuscripts of the motets, mass settings and secular chants for the new album in the libraries of Cambridge, Oxford, London and York. Unlike composers from mainland Europe, who were often famous at the time, "English composers were considered lowly, anonymous servants of an art that formed part of a divine worship," according to Paul Van Nevel. Although none of the composers of the recorded pieces are known by name, they exhibit an enormously high level of formal composition. At the same time, the album contains chants such as "Stella maris illustrans omnia" and "Kyrie Cuthberthe", which have almost visionary features with their chromatic sound language. In terms of their expressive richness, two of the works also reflect the influence of 13th and 14th century French music. For example, "En Albion de fluns environen", sung in French, tells metaphorically of the Hundred Years' War and the predicament of the English King Edward III. And although the four-part motet "Exulta Syon filia / En ai je bien trouvé" is of English origin, it has French features, not least because of the quotation of a popular French song. As artfully polyphonic as the works to be heard are, however, one also discovers an evergreen from the English Middle Ages on "Albion: Medieval Polyphony in England." It is the four-part canon "Sumer is icumen in", a melody that, according to Paul Van Nevel, "almost everyone in England can whistle along to".

Price: $22.98