The packaging for this release telegraphs rather than indicates its contents, which are of interest mostly to chant enthusiasts and specialists but for that group are likely to be quite intriguing and unusual. The unusual quality resides less in the fact that the music contains a set of 15th century Office chants from a mass in honor of Mary than in their geographical origin: the music comes from Hamburg, pictured on the cover with its city wall and surrounding moat. Polyphony was slow to reach northern Germany, except in ...
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The packaging for this release telegraphs rather than indicates its contents, which are of interest mostly to chant enthusiasts and specialists but for that group are likely to be quite intriguing and unusual. The unusual quality resides less in the fact that the music contains a set of 15th century Office chants from a mass in honor of Mary than in their geographical origin: the music comes from Hamburg, pictured on the cover with its city wall and surrounding moat. Polyphony was slow to reach northern Germany, except in the hands of keyboardists, who sometimes played in alternation with chant singers, and the medieval chant from this part of Europe remains all but unknown. On this album there are only plainchants, taken from a recently discovered and edited manuscript and performed smoothly by the five-voice German a cappella group Amarcord. There are chants for three Nocturn Offices, plus an opening Invitatorium. The music doesn't match chants from earlier repertories or those from other parts of...
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