Lament For Letho

The world premiere recording of John Tavener’s Lament for Jerusalem in its “Jerusalem version” performed by the Choir and Orchestra of London under the direction of Jeremy Summerly. Soprano Angharad Gruffydd Jones and counter-tenor Peter Crawford are the featured soloists.

The music of Guillaume Dufay is often said to lie on the boundary between medieval and Renaissance. It is complex in the manner of medieval polyphony, sometimes with multiple texts in different languages, and intricate rhyme schemes. Yet, in its evocative use of vertical sonority and its original texts in the songs, it approaches a manner of text-setting that you can recognize as modern. His chansons are not often recorded, so this release of 18 chansons from the Orlando Consort would be welcome on general principles; it has virtues considerably beyond that.

The music of medieval Iberia, from the province of Andalusia or al-Andalus, has survived in oral traditions from all three of its constituent groups, Arab, Jewish, and Christian. This opens up possibilities for reconstructing quite a large body of music, although of course the uncertainties increase along with the variety of information. This release by the Spanish early music group Capilla Antigua de Chinchilla focuses on Sephardic vocal music in the Ladino language.