The text of Media vita is attributed to Notker, a learned Benedictine of St Gall who died in 912. The story goes that he composed it while watching workmen build the bridge of Matinsbruck, in so doing risking their lives. Kerensa Briggs’ atmospheric setting of the text was commissioned by Siglo de Oro and Patrick Allies in 2015 to celebrate 500 years since the birth of the English Renaissance composer John Sheppard. Briggs describes how ‘The piece draws inspiration from both the intensity and ebb and flow found within Sheppard’s work and the text itself. False relations and imitative writing remain but these ideas are incorporated into a rich harmonic language and reflective sonority, depicting an awareness of death in life alongside a hope for redemption or salvation.’

from notes by Anna Lapwood © 2020