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Track(s) taken from CDA67832

Hildegard Triptych

composer
No 1: 17 April 1997; No 2: 14 September 1997; No 3: 19 November 1997; SATB SATB divisi, unaccompanied; dedicated to Dale Warland
author of text

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, Stephen Layton (conductor)
Recording details: July 2010
Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Produced by Adrian Peacock
Engineered by David Hinitt
Release date: July 2011
Total duration: 10 minutes 17 seconds

Cover artwork: Michael by Arild Rosenkrantz (1870-1964)
Courtesy of Peter Nahum at The Leicester Galleries, London / Private Collection, Denmark
 

Reviews

‘In the fourth year of Stephen Layton's directorship the Trinity choir's sense of corporate ease and confidence is such that nothing fazes them. The singing is beautifully blended, the parts sensitively balanced, the absence of spurious vibrato a constant pleasure. Typically outstanding Hyperion sound caps this warmly recommendable issue’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Maestro Layton is a master of shading and dynamic control, so there's always a sense of ebb and flow to the glowing harmonies that animate this music’ (American Record Guide)

‘First, a health warning: it is impossible to do anything else but listen once the opening track of this glorious album begins … here is music making of the highest quality. I don’t have the space to mention all of the choral wonders on this disc but I can say with certainty that it is an album that will repay repeated listening for years to come’ (Classic FM Magazine)
The Hildegard Triptych is a challenging set of works set for double choir, and represents just one part of a significant body of choral and organ works inspired by the great medieval mystic. O virtus sapientiae recalls the music of Hildegard as well as the text, opening with an exchange of organum duplum phrases which rapidly expands to encompass the whole choir, decorated with florid melisma. The extraordinary pan-tonal opening of Caritas abundat brings the meditative works of Messiaen immediately to mind, invoking a tantalizing vision of a thousand years of mysticism squeezed into three minutes of music; and O vis aeternitatis, announcing itself with a prolonged bare fifth, opens the set in a medieval idiom, this time with the homophony of the conductus style.

from notes by Gabriel Crouch © 2011

Le Hildegard Triptych est un exaltant corpus de compositions à double chœur, qui ne représente qu’une partie de l’imposant enesmble de pages chorales et organistiques que lui inspira la grande mystique médiévale. O virtus sapientiae rappelle la musique et le texte de Hildegarde: un premier échange de phrases, en organum duplum, se développe rapidement jusqu’à englober le chœur entier, orné de mélismes fleuris. L’extraordinaire ouverture pantonale de Caritas abundat évoque d’emblée les œuvres méditatives de Messiaen—une vision suppliciante où mille ans de mysticisme sont condensés en trois minutes de musique. Quant à O vis aeternitatis, qui s’annonce par une longue quinte dépouillée, il introduit le corpus avec un idiome médiéval composé, cette fois, d'une homophonie du style du conductus.

extrait des notes rédigées par Gabriel Crouch © 2011
Français: Hypérion

Das Hildegard Triptych ist ein anspruchsvoller Werkzyklus für Doppelchor und repräsentiert nur einen Teil eines beträchtlichen Korpus an Chor- und Orgelwerken, die von der großen mittelalterlichen Mystikerin inspiriert sind. O virtus sapientiae bezieht sich sowohl auf die Musik als auch Hildegards Text und beginnt mit mehreren Organum-duplum-Phrasen, die sich schnell ausdehnen, so dass der gesamte Chor mit blumigen Melismen erklingt. Der außergewöhnliche pan-tonale Beginn von Caritas abundat ruft sofort die meditativen Werke Messiaens ins Gedächtnis und erzeugt eine verlockende Vision von tausend Jahren Mystik, die auf drei Minuten Musik komprimiert sind. O vis aeternitatis kündigt sich mit einer länger erklingenden leeren Quinte an und kehrt zu der mittelalterlichen Tonsprache zurück, diesmal jedoch mit der Homophonie des Conductus-Stils.

aus dem Begleittext von Gabriel Crouch © 2011
Deutsch: Viola Scheffel

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