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St James the Greater.
The Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS.Douce.112
CDA66997
Superseded by CDH55272

Recording details: July 1997
Rickmansworth Masonic School Chapel, United Kingdom
Produced by David Skinner
Engineered by Tony Faulkner
Release date: May 1998
Total duration: 66 minutes 27 seconds

GRAMOPHONE RECORDING OF THE MONTH
GRAMOPHONE CRITICS' CHOICE
GRAMOPHONE AWARDS WINNER
DIAPASON D'OR

'This is Dufay as I have always wanted to hear him. [It] is as close to a perfect Dufay CD as I have ever heard … So utterly compelling is this recording that I can imagine it acquiring cult status' (Gramophone)

'Superb' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Cette interprétation est pétrie d'une humanité confondante qui m'a laissé coi' (Répertoire, France)

'La vitalité et l'éclat sont magnifiquement rendus dans cette interprétation anglo-saxonne qui impose un bel équilibre entre l'euphorie sensuelle habituelle de ses choeurs a capella et le dynamisme d'une lecture expressive et claire' (Diapason, France)

Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474)
Music for St James the Greater
The Binchois Consort, Andrew Kirkman (conductor)
LISTEN TO ALL EXTRACTS
Missa Sancti Jacobi
1
Movement 1: Introit  [4'28]
2
Movement 2: Kyrie  [5'26]
3
Movement 3: Gloria  [4'48]
4
Movement 4: Alleluia  [5'20]
5
Movement 5: Credo  [8'40]
6
Movement 6: Offertory  [3'41]
7
Movement 7: Sanctus  [4'16]
8
Movement 8: Agnus Dei  [2'42]
9
Movement 9: Communio  [1'47]
10
Rite maiorem Jacobum canamus/Arcibus summis miseri reclusi  [4'19]
11
Balsamus et munda cera  [4'31]
Gloria and Credo
12
Part 1: Gloria  [5'52]
13
Part 2: Credo  [6'50]
14
Apostolo glorioso  [3'47]
This is a glorious disc: superb performances of truly wonderful music. St James the Greater, Apostle of Christ, foster son of the Virgin Mary, brother of St John the Evangelist, and indelibly - if somewhat perplexingly - associated with Compostela, became the focus of many composers; after all, anyone who was anyone in the Middle Ages (including Chaucer's Wife of Bath) would make a pilgrimage to St James's shrine in Spain at some point in their life. The exact background to Dufay's Mass is as yet unknown but it is an enormous work (forty minutes plus) of great passion. Also included on this disc are three motets composed around the same time as the Mass, and a Gloria/Credo pairing, remarkable for up-beat, if irreverent, interpolations of snippets from Italian and French popular songs during the 'Amens'.