With this album, Schola and Ensemble devotio moderna has undertaken the task of recovering and reconstructing the musical life of the North German Walsrode Convent, which was established in the late 10th century, and then converted to a Lutheran convent during the 16th century in the wake of the Reformation. The music recorded here spans the convent's history, from the Medieval Latin chants of the Roman Church to Lutheran chorales in German. The singers are accompanied in the chants with bells, and as they move forward in ...
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With this album, Schola and Ensemble devotio moderna has undertaken the task of recovering and reconstructing the musical life of the North German Walsrode Convent, which was established in the late 10th century, and then converted to a Lutheran convent during the 16th century in the wake of the Reformation. The music recorded here spans the convent's history, from the Medieval Latin chants of the Roman Church to Lutheran chorales in German. The singers are accompanied in the chants with bells, and as they move forward in history, use recorder, harp, psaltery, and lute, and finally, in the chorales, organ. The dates of the Latin chants are not given, but in their wide range, use of melisma, unconventional intervals, and the freedom with which they migrate between modes, they raise the question of whether they might have been influenced by the music of Hildegard. Some of the music is sung by soloists, and some by a small vocal ensemble, according to what the performers believe to have been the tradition...
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