This new disc from the famed Waverly Consort contains a thoughtfully organized and beautifully presented program that at once reminds us of the early origins of musical celebrations of Christmas while telling the story of the birth of Christ as expressed by poets, church composers, and musicians from various parts of Medieval Europe. If you’ve already got shelves crammed full of Christmas CDs, you should know that this one is not the usual compilation of ancient carols and chants, but consists exclusively of rarely or never-recorded songs, chants, hymns, lauds, conducti, antiphons, and other vocal forms common to the Middle Ages. And if you’re looking for an introduction to music of this period, you couldn’t do better than this program and these first-rate performers who really deliver the goods with a mind for entertainment as well as for authenticity.
The nine Consort singers, used in various combinations throughout, offer some marvelous unison singing, even more impressive–and effective–in the sections where more than one or two octaves separates the soprano line from the bass. This is difficult to pull off, but intonation between lowest and highest voices is perfect and all together it creates an uncanny sensation of increased power and resonance that doesn’t happen when the voices are scored more closely. One of the more interesting selections is the 14th century Italian lauda “Verbum caro factum est” (not the one you probably know), a fetching performance with men’s voices and a few well chosen instruments that shows just how able and artful this group is in preserving the music’s ancient-ness while making it alive and immediately appealing to modern listeners. And you’ll certainly want several hearings of the extended scene from the 12th-century Play of Herod–an exciting rendition that you can imagine would have had its original listeners’ full and awe-filled attention.
There are so many high points among these 18 tracks–the surprising harmonies of a 14th-century “Agnus Dei” from Worcester Cathedral, the gentle bells heralding the shepherds in the selection from the 13th-century musical drama “The Shepherds’ Play”, Guillaume Dufay’s funky “Gloria” with two sopranos and two slide trumpets, the beautiful chant singing in the 13th-century French “Ave Maria gratia plena”, the absolutely gorgeous little antiphon by 14th-century composer Leonel Power, and on and on. The sound is vibrant, natural, well-balanced–in other words, as good as can be. The bottom line: don’t miss this one.
