ASSUMPTION MASS Cristóbal de Morales
Orchestra of the Renaissance Richard Cheetham
GCD 921404
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Performing artists
Orchestra of the Renaissance directed by Richard Cheetham
Michael Noone, guest conductor
Josep Cabré, solo plainchantWilliam Missin, countertenorFergus McLusky, countertenorChristopher Watson, tenorWarren Trevelyan-Jones, tenorSimon Davies, tenorPhilip Cave, tenorDonald Greig, bassCharles Gibbs, bassFiona Russell, cornettBeatrice Delpierre, soprano & alto shawmWilliam Lyons, alto shawmFrancis Mercet, tenor shawmRichard Cheetham, tenor sackbutPatrick Jackman, bass sackbutKate van Orden, dulcianSiobhán Armstrong, harpAlastair Ross, organ
Production details
Playing time: 76'10 Recorded in St. Jude-on-the-Hill, London Date: July 1999 and August 2000 Engineered and produced by Nicholas ParkerDesign: Carlos Céster Booklet essay: Booklet notes by Michael Noone English, German, French, Spanish
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CRISTOBAL DE MORALES
Assumption Mass
1 MORALES Exaltata est Sancta Dei Genitrix 2 RIBERA Beata Mater 3 CABEZÓN Tiento sobre «Ave maris stella» 4 TORRENTES Asperges me 5 PLAINCHANT Introitus 6 MORALES Kyrie † 7 MORALES Gloria † 8 PLAINCHANT Oratio 9 PLAINCHANT Graduale & Alleluia 10 MORALES Credo † 11 PLAINCHANT Offertorium 12 GUERRERO Ave Maria 13 PLAINCHANT Prefacio 14 MORALES Sanctus † 15 GUERRERO Dulcissima Maria 16 PLAINCHANT Pater noster 17 MORALES Agnus Dei † 18 PLAINCHANT Communio 19 CEBALLOS O pretiosum et admirabile 20 PLAINCHANT Postcommunio 21 CABEZÓN Beata viscera Mariae Virginis 22 MORALES Ave regina caelorum† Missa Benedicta est regina caelorum
About this CD
The long awaited follow up to the Orchestra of the Renaissance's award winning CD of Guerrero's Requiem [GCD 921402], this new release continues to explore the incredibly rich source of Spanish Renaissance liturgical music in a fascinating recreation of the Assumption Mass at Toledo Cathedral in 1580.
Michael Noone and Richard Cheetham have drawn the greater part of the music performed here from a unique musical repository: a library of massive and sumptuously illuminated parchment choirbooks of polyphonic music from the archives of Toledo Cathedral.
The Assumption Mass combines polyphonic pieces by Cristóbal de Morales, Andrés de Torrentes, Bernardino de Ribera, Francisco Guerrero, Rodrigo de Ceballos and Antonio de Cabezón interspersed by rapturous solo plainchants performed by Josep Cabré.
Cheetham controversially argues that instrumental groups, or a kind of "orchestras", were widely used in the Renaissance in religious settings to accompany church choirs. And guest conductor, Michael Noone, explains this in an absolutely fascinating booklet note which sheds light on the reasons behind the choices made in reconstructing this event.
Following the revelatory release a couple of years ago of Morales en Toledo it is a great pleasure to welcome back Michael Noone and Ensemble Plus Ultra to Glossa for a further demonstration — in the music of Morales’ younger contemporary Francisco Guerrero — of Noone’s remarkable knack of uniting unknown music from recognized masters in superb performances underpinned by exemplary scholarship. Through his ongoing research in the Cathedral Archives in Toledo, Noone has discovered a group of six hymns by Guerrero (written when he was apprenticed to Morales), recording these in the church of San Miguel in Cuenca along with the previously-unrecorded Missa Super flumina Babylonis in the company of plainchant specialist Juan Carlos Asensio’s Schola Antiqua and the instrumentalists from His Majesties Sagbutts and Cornetts. [read more...]