Selene: Heavenly Light - Eton Choirbook Reconstructions I - Record

Title: Heavenly Light - Eton Choirbook Reconstructions I
Artist: Selene
Label: CRD
Product Type: COMPACT DISCS
UPC: 0708093355525
Genre: Classical Artists
Release Date: 2025-05-02
Number of Discs: 1

The Eton Choirbook is recognised as one of the UK's national treasures - an extraordinary survival of the religious iconoclasm which swept away so many choral institutions and musical manuscripts as well as a great deal of beautiful art, architecture, sculpture, stone carving, stained glass, and embroidery from the colourful, pre-Reformation world. The Eton Choirbook originally contained ninety-three works by twenty-five composers who hailed variously from Eton, Windsor, Eton's sister foundation at King's College, Cambridge, Oxford, and the Royal Court. It was compiled, with great care and no expense spared, and completed around 1504/5. But what makes the Eton Choirbook so special for both listener and performer is that the music it contains is hauntingly beautiful. There really is nothing like it in continental music of the time which the 'Eton' works surpass in scale (some last over fifteen minutes), number of voice parts, and use of wide vocal ranges - as well as the high degree of melodic invention and rhythmic complexity which places them beyond the reach of most choirs nowadays. © Russell Blacker

Tracks:
1.1 Ascendit Christus a5 (secunda pars)
1.2 O Virgo Prudentissima a6 (prima pars)
1.3 Ave, Lumen Gratiae a4 (prima pars)
1.4 Magnificat a6
1.5 Gaude, Virgo Mater Christi a4
1.6 Gaude, Flore Virginali a6 (secunda pars)
1.7 Gaude, Virgo Mater Christi a5
1.8 Salve Decus Castitatis a5
1.9 Gaude Virgo Salutata a4