Grégorien Gregorian

"Sacrum Convivium" presents a vision of French music over two millennia: from Gregorian chant through Guillaume de Machaut’s extraordinary ‘Lai de Nostre Dame’ to the Twentieth Century of Maurice Duruflé, Francis Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen, all three of them influenced in some way by the spirituality and sensibility of Gregorian chant, which Messiaen himself described as “the greatest treasure we possess in western music.”

Jordi Savall & Montserrat Figueras - Pro Pacem: Textes, Art & Musiques pour la Paix (2012) {Alia Vox AVSA9894}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 382 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 188 Mb
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© 2012 Alia Vox | AVSA9894
Classical / Vocal Music / Chamber Music / Instrumental Music / World Music

PRO PACEM is a new CD-Book project that makes a plea for a world without war or terrorism and for total nuclear disarmament. It presents a sound mosaic that takes the form of a living dialogue of spiritually expressive vocal and instrumental music from a variety of repertoires from East (Armenia, Turkey, Sepharad, India, Israel and China) and West (Greece, Spain, England, Portugal, Italy, Estonia and Belgium).

It is my opinion that Jean Langlais has written some of the noblest, richest and most awe-inspiring sacred music there has ever been. He wrote more organ music than J. S. Bach, and most of it is as suitable for liturgical performance as sung music. His style is a powerful mixture of chant-like motifs (including actual quotations from Gregorian chant), organum, and bold dissonances that give way to pure, radiant tonality. He draws on a wide range of expressions too, from radiant and blazing to quiet and ecstatic. He was truly a craftsman of the highest calibre, and a credit to the distinguished musical heritage of his native France.

A few years ago Rudolf Innig accomplished a grand discographic feat with his complete recording of the nine organ symphonies of Felix Nowowiejski, thereby rehabilitating an almost entirely forgotten master of late romantic organ sound. He later presented a recording of smaller-format organ compositions by Nowowiejski. The four “Concerti” recorded here conclude this valuable edition now for the first time presenting the Polish master’s complete organ oeuvre on CD on MDG. Those who expect an orchestra for the concerto form are in for a genuine surprise.

Originally recorded in 1989, The Sacred Bridge contains a speculative program linking various genres of Christian and Jewish religious music, most of it medieval. The Boston Camerata continued to perform the program in various forms in subsequent years.

Hildegard von Bingen & Zad Moultaka - Gemme - Ensemble De Caelis, Laurence Brisset (2015) {Official Digital Download}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 196 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 130 Mb
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© 2015 L’empreinte digitale | ED13241
Classical / Medieval / Early Music / Sacred Vocal Music

Meeting between heaven and earth, between a singular woman, mystic, scientist, musician, living in the Rhineland at the beginning of the first crusade, and a contemporary Lebanese composer. Where the music and poems of the abbess of the twelfth century, famous for its ecstatic visions, rises to melt in that of Moultaka to a gradual descent into hell. Between archaism and modernity, Gregorian and old modes, the sound universe, by the games of echoes and resonances, takes on a strange modernity and questions our contemporary world, its blackness, its violence, its fragility. All of Caelis, directed by Laurence Brisset, has specialized in the ancient repertoire and has been opening its programs for today's composers for several years.