Crown & Veil–Music from Medieval Female Monasteries

Ben Bagby, director of Sequentia, sent along this note: 

I'm honored that you decided to play this utter sleeper of a CD. Some little details:

• The impetus to make this recording came from Jeffrey Hamburger, art history prof. at Harvard, who co-curated the exhibition in Bonn and Essen in 2004. I basically tried to record pieces which were from some of the many manuscripts (including Hildegard) on display. There was also one single concert given, in the Essen Cathedral.
• Tracks 2 and 15 feature the sublime singing of Lena Susanne Norin (and in fact, track 15, a text from the Song of Songs, was a piece that Barbara Thornton used to sing in concert but never recorded). 
• Track 6 is something I transcribed from a 12th century fragment kept in the Stadtarchiv Köln, which disastrously collapsed last winter, losing thousands of precious documents. I haven't yet learned if our fragment survived.
• Track 9 is a beautiful little 2-voice piece which I had to reconstruct based on the 19th century engraving of a since-lost medieval ms. in Strasbourg (Franco-Prussian War: the city was bombarded in 1871 and the library -- Sarajevo-like -- was burned). 
• Since most of music mss. on display were chantbooks and most nuns passed their days and nights in chanting psalmody, I wanted very much to include some psalmody singing (anathema to record companies!) in the CD. Since this CD was never sold outside the museum, it hardly matters. 

Our recording was for several years one of medieval music's best-kept secrets, that is, until you came along!
 

For more information on this ensemble:

www.sequentia.org