Ensemble Organum Chants de L'eglise de Rome: Incarnatio Verbi

The music on this CD is not what most people consider "Gregorian Chant". The music presented here is taken from the "Old Roman" chant repertory (ca. 7th-8th Centuries) which pre-dates what is most referred to as Gregorian Chant. The Gregorian Chant which most people are familiar with actually comes from the Carolingian Empire (ca. 850-1000), which came into existence later than the Old Roman period. Hence, the reportoire from the Old Roman period is unsingable if sung in the style suggested by Gregorian scholars for Carolingian chants.

This Requiem is known in five sources; two of them mention no composer, two attribute it to Antoine de Févin, one, the Occo Codex, to Antoine Divitis. It is recorded here in the version transmitted by an early sixteenth-century manuscript, the Occo Codex, a sumptuous, richly illuminated volume. The book was originally intended for use in worship at one of the oldest churches in Amsterdam, built in the fourteenth century on the site of a miracle which played a fundamental role in constituting the religious identity of Amsterdam. Occo was the name of the rich merchant who financed the production of the manuscript.

Simon Scarrow a obtenu une maîtrise à l'Université d'East Anglia. Il a travaillé pendant de nombreuses années comme professeur à Sixth Form College. Il a beaucoup voyagé et il s'est appuyé sur ses voyages pour écrire.
Il est auteur de deux séries de romans historiques très applaudies : ""Eagles of the Empire"" et "The Revolution"…

This recording came to fruition thanks to nearly 25 years of effort. In 1997, Marcel Pérès and his Ensemble Organum began a simultaneous exploration of the Mozarabic rite (the liturgical chant peculiar to the Christians living in Spain at the time of Arabrule) and of the Samaa spiritual practice of Morocco. Setting aside the theological differences between the two faiths, the artists discovered a great deal of kinship between the two forms of musical expression. A veritable utopia, the idea for this recording then suggested itself: to regain the lost accord of human brotherhood through music.

As with so many of the best early music ensembles performing today, the musical performances of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois have been inextricably linked with profound musical scholarship and with the leadership of a single powerful personality. For the Ensemble Gilles Binchois, this personality remains its founder and director, Dominique Vellard.

In 1997, Marcel Pérès and his Ensemble Organum began a simultaneous exploration of the Mozarabic rite (the liturgical chant peculiar to the Christians living in Spain at the time of Arab rule) and of the Samaa spiritual practice of Morocco. Setting aside the theological differences between the two faiths, the artists discovered a great deal of kinship between the two forms of musical expression. A veritable utopia, the idea for this recording then suggested itself: through music, to regain the lost accord of human brotherhood.

A unique combination on record of chamber music by the Swiss composer, surveying the development of his voice and career through the medium of the flute.

A unique combination on record of chamber music by the Swiss composer, surveying the development of his voice and career through the medium of the flute.

Twelve Sibyls, ancient psychics, became during the Middle-Ages the counterpoints of the Prophets, announcing since the beginning of time (2nd-7th centuries) the arrival of a child who will become the Savior of the World. The emergence of those characters and of these strange and mysterious texts resulted of the fascination the Renaissance resolutely showed towards Antiquity. The Sibyls were even portrayed by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And it is perhaps while he was in Rome as Chapel Master of St John in the Lateran that Roland de Lassus met them and drew from their figures -with names already so dreamlike and evocative of marvelous lands such as Sibylla Delphica, Persica, Erythrea, Cumana, Hellespontiaca, Libyca … – the inspiration for this collection. The Prophetiae were composed somewhere between Rome, Antwerp and Munich, within a short period of disappearance (1554-1555) of Lassus, during which no one knows with certainty what became of the composer.