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Verbum caro factum est
composer
author of text
Ninth Respond at Matins and Processional Respond at Mass on Christmas Day
Sheppard’s Verbum caro is an exultant setting of the famous account of the Incarnation from the beginning of St John’s Gospel, and would have been sung at Matins on Christmas Day. Counteracting the duple metre maintained by the chant, Sheppard sets up triple rhythms in the free voices to achieve ‘natural’ declamation of such phrases as ‘cuius gloriam’, ‘quasi unigeniti’, and ‘plenum gratiae’. Sheppard was a colleague of Tallis’s in Queen Mary’s Chapel Royal, and had previously served as Informator choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford.
from notes by Owen Rees © 2016
Recordings
 Sheppard: Church Music, Vol. 1CDA66259Archive Service; also available on CDS44401/10  ‘A magnificent collection. The Sixteen consistently convey the rapturous beauty of Sheppard's writing, above all in ethereal passages in the highest r ...» More |
 Sheppard: Media vitaCDGIM016  The first recording of John Sheppard's masterpiece Media vita. It begins with some of the most haunting words in any of the Offices: 'In the midst of life we are in death'. Lasting over 21 minutes it is a unique and absorbing achievement.» More |
 The Sixteen & The Golden Age of PolyphonyCDS44401/1010CDs Boxed set (at a special price) When The Sixteen embarked upon their recording career back in 1982, few would have been able to predict quite how far they would go towards rehabilitating the little-known music of these four master composers of the 16th century. In this their 30t ...» More |
 The Tallis Scholars sing Tudor Church Music, Vol. 2CDGIM2102CDs for the price of 1 "Of all the polyphony we have recorded, this early English style with its dazzling high treble parts and luminous sonorities is, for me, as good as it gets. Our pioneering performances of Sheppard and White have shown them to be the equals of Tall ...» More |
 Virgin and ChildStudio Master: SIGCD474Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available  A second voyage through the miracle that is the Baldwin Partbooks draws from the singers of Contrapunctus and their director Owen Rees performances of rare integrity—and great beauty.» More |
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