Plebs

Two masses, a handful of motets, and two chansons are all that remains of the oeuvre of a composer regarded by the theorist Johannes Tictoris as one of the most important of his generation. The Clerks' Group's expertise in the 15th-century repertoire has received many accolades. Here, the group once again displays its exceptional competence in the service of the outstanding works by one of the period's most original composers.

In the monastic life of the Cistercian order, as in the case of the female monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas (Burgos), a royal pantheon, the seat of coronations and the epicentre of a very intense musical life in which singing played an extremely important part, the nuns were called upon to live a life of simplicity, silence, prayer and contemplation. Flavit auster, which is part of the Las Huelgas Codex, is a Marian text inspired in the Song of Songs in which the most powerful symbols of femininity appear, such as the honeycomb, milk and honey, and protectiveness described as “mother of mercy, port of hope for the shipwrecked and virgin mother purified.”