MUSIC AND POETRY IN ST GALLEN Sequences and tropes (9th century)
Ensemble Gilles Binchois Dominique Vellard with Wulf Arlt
GCD 9225031 CD. Digipak, 60-page booklet
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Performing artists
Raphaël Boulay, tenor Gerd Türk, tenor Dominique Vellard, tenor Emmanuel Bonnardot, baritone Jacques Bona, bass Stephen Grant, bass
Production details
Total playing time 58:43 Recorded at Église de Romainmôtier (Vaud, Switzerland) in April 1996 Engineered and produced by Pere Casulleras Executive producers: Thomas Drescher, Carlos Céster Design: Valentín Iglesias Booklet essay: Wulf Arlt English Français Deutsch Español
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Commercial release sheet (PDF)
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MUSIC AND POETRY IN ST GALLEN
Notker, Tuotilo, Ratpert and anon.
Gallus 1 Alleluia. Iustus ut palma 2 Sequentia Dilecte deo [Notker]
Nativitas 3 Introitus Puer natus est and tropes: Hodie cantandus est [Tuotilo] Hodie natus est 4 Alleluia. Dies sanctificatus 5 Sequentia Natus ante sæcula [Notker] 6 Communio Viderunt omnes and tropes: Hodie pectore mundo [attr. Tuotilo] Cernere quod
Johannes Evangelista 7 Introitus In medio ecclesiæ and tropes: Dilectus iste [attr. Notker] Quoniam dominus [Tuotilo] Os tuum inquiens Milibus argenti
Innocentes 8 Sequentia Laus tibi Christe [Notker]
Epiphania 9 Introitus Ecce advenit and tropes: Hodie clarissimam Forma speciosissimus [attr. Notker] Olim quem
Versus ad Processionem 10 Versus Ardua spes mundi [Ratpert]
Pascha 11 Offertorium Terra tremuit and tropes: Gaudete et cantate [Tuotilo] Monumenta aperta sunt Notus est dominus In pace factus est
Dominica IV post octavam Paschæ 12 Sequentia Læta mente [Notker]
Ascensio 13 Introitus Viri Galilæi and tropes: Ex numero frequentium [attr. Notker] Quasi quid 14 Alleluia. Dominus in Sina 15 Offertorium Viri Galilæi
Pentecostes 16 Alleluia. Spiritus domini 17 Sequentia Sancti spiritus [Notker]
About this CD
The Benedictine monastery of St Gallen (Sankt Gallen), situated near Lake Constance, acted in the early medieval period as a creative centre for the development of music and poetry concerned with the liturgy. To be found there were the oldest named composer-poets from the West, especially monks such as Ratpert (d. 890), Notker (d. 912) and Tuotilo (d. 913). They enlarged and broadened out the scope of existing liturgical chants with additions whose melodic and poetic inventiveness still provoke admiration today. Such tropes and sequences were brought together in the 10th century in St Gallen’s codices 484 and 381, with a precise notation in neumes which is unique to the Abbey.
Across a number of important and far-reaching recordings, musicologist Wulf Arlt and Dominique Vellard along with his Ensemble Gilles Binchois have recovered and revived broad areas of medieval music. This collection of works from St Gallen, which we are now reissuing, occupies a distinguished and noteworthy position because it presents the first music of Western culture which can be ascribed to individual creators. The recording itself was made in one of the most beautiful Romanesque churches in Switzerland in Romainmôtier.
Since starting making recordings for Glossa in 2007 Dominique Vellard has been demonstrating the broad range of interests which have been so influential over the thirty years of the career of his Ensemble Gilles Binchois and which help to make up this complex musical personality. From the earliest polyphonies interspersed with Gregorian Chant (in L’Arbre de Jessé and the reissued Music and Poetry in St Gallen) to 21st century compositions from Vellard himself and Jean-Pierre Leguay (in Vox nostra resonet and Motets croisés) by way of the 17th century polyphony of Monteverdi, Schütz and Frescobaldi, some of the facets of Vellard’s continuing interest in religious music have been reflected on the label. [read more...]
There could be no neater way of expressing how the educational aims of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis can be realized today than the recent recording on Glossa of The Passions by William Hayes, with a member of the faculty in Anthony Rooley conducting choral and orchestral forces drawn from the Schola and with soloists who have been students there (or who also teach there like Evelyn Tubb). [read more...]
“It is the same effect as when you see the sun shining through stained-glass windows in a church: suddenly all the colours are singing.”
After nearly three decades of carving out a niche (as rich as Romanesque statuary found in the Burgundy where he lives and works), Dominique Vellard has returned with a new vigour for performing (and recording), whether it is with his colleagues from the Ensemble Gilles Binchois or as a solo singer. The tenor voice of this deeply-thinking musician has the capacity to explore and explain the messages and subtleties of liturgical traditions that range far beyond the Western tradition. [read more...]
I began to compose seriously back in 1999. Prior to that I always liked making song arrangements or fauxbourdons, or writing pieces ‘in the style’ of, for instance, 14th or 15th century songs. Very often in the medieval field, of course, we need to add some voices or to complete some defective parts. I had no real desire to compose – I didn’t think that it was my field. I was a singer, after all, and music from the past is so good, whether it was from composers of the 17th century or Ligeti. Then, one day, in Sheffield in England, I was asked by Peter Cropper of The Lindsays whether there were any chants in existence that could accompany Haydn’s Seven Last Words. On not finding any interesting pieces in the repertory and whilst being at home, I started writing three-part pieces – for my wife, my daughter and myself. I was I bit surprised to see that it was working and on finishing the compositions I found that they had some sense! [read more...]