Album

The albums of Aquitanian chant and polyphony released by the medievalist ensemble Sequentia—Aquitania was the second—are model presentations of music nearly a millennium removed from us in time. Aquitania (or Aquitaine), in what is now southwestern France, was one of the most prosperous regions of the medieval world. From its monasteries flowed intricate and widely influential music, including Europe's first experiments in polyphony. The selections on Aquitania consist of chants and two-part pieces, mostly on themes of Mary and the Nativity. All the vocal music is unaccompanied; some is sung solo, some by a male or female choir, and some antiphonally between solo and choir. The poetry is exuberantly original and devotional, and this album helps the listener realize that the music may be described the same way. Some of these pieces have been reconstructed by Sequentia from the sketchy notation in which they have come down to us.

The performances themselves are musically persuasive; listeners can't help but get a feel for why the anonymous monastic composers of this music might have applied such structural features as dissonant (or, in the terminology of the time, "imperfect") intervals where they did. The liner notes by Sequentia founders Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton perfectly set up the music's context. If you studied Aquitanian polyphony as part of a college music history survey, you may find that you learn more from their three pages of exposition than you did from the hours of dry musical examples through which this repertory is usually taught. Bagby and Thornton address such topics as why the whole panoply of multipart music in Europe should have arisen in this region, and they informatively define the act of composition in this era as "an act of image-making around a mythological, philosophical, or theological theme." In the service of this image-making, a poet or composer may "embroider on word-meaning (usually biblical in origin) through textual troping, or through the colorations of musical-modal figures, of tessitura, or even the extreme means of having two voices sound intervals simultaneously." There may be a term in there that you have to look up in a glossary or dictionary, but those sentences get to the center of the medieval expressive mind.

Christians may well find this album revelatory of profound religious sentiments, while even those of a pagan frame of mind will be impressed by the natural imagery in some of the texts ("From the mountain the stone is cut, yet no hand is interposed by way of help/From the earth rises the spring, from the daughter is born the Father and creator of all") and by the enthusiastic musical responses to such imagery. Major props go to text translator Peter Dronke for rendering the Latin texts in accessible English and especially for preserving the "Jesus Christ, Son of God the Savior" acrostic in his English translation of St. Augustine's apocalyptic Erythrean Sibyl's Verses from The City of God. For its beauty and educational value, Aquitania was a bargain at full price, and it's gratifying to find that BMG sensed enough of a demand for the album to reissue it in its budget line. Bravo.

© James Manheim, All Music Guide

CD 1
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Dulci dignum melodia Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
1	Dulci dignum melodia	4:15			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Mundo salus gracie Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia women's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble, Ellen L. Hargis Vocals, Nancy Mayer Vocals
2	Mundo salus gracie	2:59			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Clara sonent organa Work Recorded 1996 Eric Mentzel Vocals, William Hite Vocals, Elizabeth Gaver Fiddle (Medieval), Frank Kelley Vocals
3	Clara sonent organa	3:34			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Noster cetus psallat letus Work Recorded 1996 Paul Guttry Vocals, Stephen Grant Vocals
4	Noster cetus psallat letus	3:19			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Virginis in gremio Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
5	Virginis in gremio	2:31			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Iudicii signum Work Recorded 1996 Barbara Thornton Vocals, Sequentia women's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
6	Iudicii signum	6:52			$0.99
Elizabeth Gower Composer Senescente mundano filio, realized for medieval instruments Work Recorded 1997 Sequentia Ensemble for Medieval Music, Cologne Ensemble
7	Senescente mundano filio, realized for medieval instruments	2:56			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Alleluia! Iustus ut palma florebit Work Recorded 1994 Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
8	Alleluia! Iustus ut palma florebit	2:59			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Quam felix cubiculum Work Recorded 1996 William Hite Vocals, William Sharp Vocals
9	Quam felix cubiculum	1:38			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Uterus hodie Work Recorded 1996 Elizabeth Gaver Fiddle (Medieval), Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
10	Uterus hodie	3:53			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Iubilemus, exultemus Work Recorded 1996 Heather Knutson Vocals, Pamela Dellal Vocals, Nancy Mayer Vocals, Janet Youngdahl Vocals
11	Iubilemus, exultemus	3:09			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Descendit de celis Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
12	Descendit de celis	6:17			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Gaudia debita Work Recorded 1996 Benjamin Bagby Vocals, Paul Guttry Vocals, Stephen Grant Vocals
13	Gaudia debita	4:30			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Natus est rex Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
14	Natus est rex	5:05			$0.99
Elizabeth Gower Composer Mundo salus gracie, realized for medieval instruments Work Recorded 1997 Robert Mealy Fiddle (Medieval), Elizabeth Gaver Fiddle (Medieval)
15	Mundo salus gracie, realized for medieval instruments	4:57			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer De monte lapis scinditur Work Recorded 1996 Benjamin Bagby Vocals, William Sharp Vocals
16	De monte lapis scinditur	2:44			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer O Maria, Deu maire Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia women's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble
17	O Maria, Deu maire	4:38			$0.99
Anonymous, Aquitanian Repertory Composer Plebs domini Work Recorded 1996 Sequentia men's vocal ensemble Vocal Ensemble, Paul Guttry Vocals, Stephen Grant Vocals, William Sharp Vocals
18	Plebs domini	6:41			$0.99