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Track(s) taken from SIGCD045

Veni electa mea

composer
author of text
Song of Songs

The Brabant Ensemble, Stephen Rice (conductor)
Recording details: April 2003
Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom
Produced by Jeremy Summerly
Engineered by Justin Lowe
Release date: September 2004
Total duration: 5 minutes 47 seconds

Cover artwork: The Marriage of the Virgin (detail of the suitors) (1500-1504) by Pietro Perugino (c1445-1523)
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

'The individual movements of the Mass are nicely contrasted with, for example, robust duetting in the ‘Et resurrexit’, and a touchingly reflective Agnus Dei. The motets, too, have moments to cherish (‘Accesserunt’ brings out the best in the singers)' (BBC Music Magazine)
RECORDING
PERFORMANCE

'Clemens’s beautifully crafted and mellifluous polyphony, nicely spiced with tellingly placed chromaticisms, is immediately appealing. The Brabant Ensemble generally does it full justice, with its clear, steady tone: the bell-like soprano sound is particularly attractive. The group also gives the music a natural sense of flow, especially in slow and expressive items such as the desolate motet Job tonso capite … a most promising debut album, suggesting the the Brabant Ensemble could have a bright future—especially if, in its enterprising choice of repertoire, it is starting as it means to go on' (The Daily Telegraph)

'They make a glorious sound which may be very English, for want of a better word, but which I found irresistible—Clemens’s mellifluous lines rise and fall beautifully, no one part taking precedence over the others, and all with an ethereal feeling … if you are unfamiliar with this repertoire, do buy this; it will change your life. Those of you who are, don't miss this wonderful debut recording' (Early Music Review)
The Song of Songs motet Veni electa mea (SATBB) adopts a novel approach to musical repetition, with the phrase ‘quia concupivit rex speciem tuam’ (for the king has desired your beauty) repeating approximately ten bars of music, but here the second ‘alleluia’, although melodically similar to the first, adopts triple time, with complex cross-rhythms. The motet as a whole is highly characteristic of mid-sixteenth century spirituality, with the eroticism of the Song of Songs harnessed to provide a metaphor for the Church as bride of Christ.

from notes by Stephen Rice © 2004

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