Gramophone Magazine
September 2021
Editor's Choice

Gothic Voices

Mayshuet de Joan: Arae post libamina / Nunc surgunt
anon.: Alma Redemptoris Mater
Damett: Salve porta paradisi
anon.: Veni, creator spiritus
Cooke, John: Gloria in excelsis
Dunstaple: Ave regina caelorum
anon.: Regina caeli laetare
anon.: Sanctus
Dunstaple: Veni sancte spiritus / Veni sancte spiritus / Veni creator spiritus / Mentes tuorum
Byttering: Nesciens mater
Cooke, John: Stella caeli extirpavit
anon.: Agnus Dei
anon.: Nesciens mater
Power, L: Gloria in excelsis
Forest: Qualis est dilectus
anon.: Beata progenies
Lymburgia: Tota pulchra es
anon.: Ave regina caelorum
Dufay: Flos Florum
Power, L: Ave regina caelorum
Dufay: Ave regina celorum
Johannes Haucourt: Je demande ma bienvenue
Binchois: Adieu mon amoureuse joye
Binchois: Dueil angoisseux
Damett: Beata Dei genitrix
anon.: Qui diceris paraclitus
Jehan Pycard: Gloria in excelsis

Gothic Voices’ eagerly awaited new album features music from The Old Hall Manuscript: a wonderful collection of classy compositions from late fourteenth- to early fifteenth-century England. It embodies the English ‘flavour’ of music of the time, with its smooth melodies and sweet harmonies, irresistible to Franco-Flemish composers writing a generation or so later, and known by them as the ‘Contenance Angloise’. This highly expressive and quirky music, ranging in atmosphere from gently suave strains to high-octane cascades of sound, benefits from the gorgeous acoustics of Boxgrove Priory. English music by Cooke, Power, Pycard and Dunstable is answered by Burgundian composers Dufay, Lymburgia and Binchois, thus demonstrating the influence of said English Countenance, and hearing its echoes in the response. This is Gothic Voices’ fourth album for Linn following its first recording of mediaeval Christmas music, Nowell synge we bothe al and som, and two thematic programmes, The Dufay Spectacle and Mary Star of the Sea, each of which received widespread critical acclaim.

‘mesmerising’ – Sunday Times (Nowell synge we bothe al and som)

‘[the five motets are] presented in what seem to me the most intelligent and musically transparent performance’ – Gramophone Editor’s Choice (The Dufay Spectacle)

"Perhaps most unexpectedly of all, the account of Dunstable’s four-voice Veni Sancte Spiritus (one of the best-known, oft-recorded pieces of the 15th century) is unquestionably one of the finest yet made." - Gramophone Magazine.