In Praise Of St Columba
Catalogue no: DCD34137
Price: £13.00 (including postage and packaging)
This ground-breaking programme seeks to recreate three distinct sound-worlds: 7th-century hymns from Iona, 10th-century chants from Celtic foundations in Switzerland, and 14th-century Columban antiphons from the Inchcolm libellus. As well as the evidence of early notation and of drawings and other indications of instrumentation, the performance styles – developed in an exciting extended collaboration with scholar and piper Barnaby Brown – are informed by oral traditions from as far afield as Sardinia and the Outer Hebrides.
'Gonville and Caius College Choir produces a full sound, and contains some fine soloists. Chants, psalms, antiphons and hymns receive performances of grace: melodies float and weave with clarity, precision and feeling.' BBC Music Magazine
'My gut reaction to this 76-minute programme is that they must have been inspired by what they found: the results are spellbinding. That judgement is partly based on the atmosphere of heady spiritual celebration on numerous tracks, starting with two Columba-related hymns from the mid-14th century Incholm Antiphoner ("Carne solutus pater Columba" and "Cantemus in omni die"), in the second of which a crotal player sets a dancing rhythm against a triplepipe ground bass. What all this adds up to is a "new" choral repertoire - a sound world liberated from the drab modern conception of plainsong.' The Financial Times
1 | Os mutorum, lux cecorum |
2 | Loquebar de testimoniis tuis |
3 | River Erne horn duet |
4 | Adiutor laborantium |
5 | Sanctorum piissime Columba |
6 | Lauda anima mea Dominum |
7 | Noli Pater |
8 | Carne solutus pater columba |
9 | Amen dico vobis |
10 | Liberasti nos Domine |
11 | Cantemus in omni die |
12 | Altus prosator |
13 | Volens lhesus linire |
14 | Laudate Dominum |
15 | The Desperate Battle of the Birds |