Graindelavoix

Graindelavoix & Björn Schmelzer – The Liberation of the Gothic (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:26:43 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glossa

With « The Liberation of the Gothic », Björn Schmelzer and Graindelavoix deliver an imaginative reading of music by two English composers active at the end of the fifteenth century, the towering figure of John Browne and the slightly later and much less wellknown Thomas Ashwell (or Ashewell). Björn Schmelzer draws a vivid connection between the florid polyphony of these two composers and the freedom of structure and ornament found in late Gothic architecture, notably that of the fourteenthcentury Lady Chapel built as part of the “Ship of the Fens”, Ely Cathedral. Performing Ashwell’s intricately-woven Missa Ave Maria – a landmark in polyphony – Schmelzer and his Antwerp-based ensemble echo, in the individual freedom accorded to these virtuoso singers, the rich ornamentation of foliage, seemingly in constant motion, decorating the walls of Ely’s Lady Chapel. The singers add their own “coloratura”, an approach which continues to be central to Björn Schmelzer’s interpretation of medieval and Renaissance works, as have been appearing on Glossa for a decade and a half now. In his booklet essay Schmelzer refers to the British writer and artist John Ruskin describing the “liberation of the Gothic” as also concerning “the workers, who were not submitted to repetitive, mechanical work but invested in continuous and infinite variation.” Acting as surrounding pillars to Ashwell’s Mass on this recording are two of the extended motets, much favoured by early Tudor English polyphonists – and encountered in the famous Eton Choirbook manuscript: John Browne’s Stabat mater and his first setting of the Salve regina.

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Graindelavoix & Björn Schmelzer – Tenebrae (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:14:13 minutes | 3,36 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glossa

There is something deeply troubling and inscrutable in Carlo Gesualdo’s music, something that any listener, even the most inexpert one, will unfailingly experience. This most particularly holds for Tenebrae Responsoria (1611), his definitive statement, his monument, his testament. It is as if this work, firmly embedded in the framework of liturgy for the Holy Week and reaching back to the practices of the Gregorian chant, would constantly extend over its boundaries and transgress its time and setting, immediately addressing modernity, disturbing all the rules in a severe tension, reaching into something that borders on chaos and madness, within the very order and religious devotion it fully espouses.

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Graindelavoix & Björn Schmelzer – Josquin, the Undead: Laments, Deplorations & Dances of Death (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:18:16 minutes | 814 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Glossa

Bjorn Schmelzer and his ensemble provide their special vision in this Josquin Desprez anniversary. With the conviction that Josquin, during his late years, produced works in sight of his own death, Graindelavoix renders compositions included in Tielman Susato’s 1545 Antwerp print (Septiesme livre de chansons, published 24 years after the composer’s life ended).

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