Bingen / Gallicantus Sibylla CD

Literally meaning 'rooster song' or 'cock crow', Gallicantus takes it's name from monastic antiquity; the name of the office held just before dawn, it was a ceremony which evoked the renewal of life offered by the coming day. Dedicated to renaissance music and directed by Gabriel Crouch, the membership of this early music group boasts a wealth of experience in consort singing. Renowned for their critically-acclaimed and researched programmes, Gallicantus presents Sibylla. At the heart of the programme is Orlandus Lassus's 16th Century Prophetiae Sibyllarum, which sets to music the texts of ancient Sibylline prophecies telling of the coming of Christ. One of the composer's most renowned and celebrated works, it is performed alongside settings by the 'Sibyl of the Rhine' Hildegard von Bingen, as well contemporary responses to Lassus's work. Dmitri Tymoczko's Prophetiae Sibyllarum sets poems by Jeff Dolven which recast the sibyls' role: this time to the teller of grim truths of present life in post-industrial America. As an epilogue the album finishes with Elliot Cole's 'I saw you under the fig tree' (part of his suite Visions) - a simple 4-part setting beneath an extraordinary countertenor glissando, setting Jesus Christ's response to Nathaniel.

1. Carmina Chromatico 2. O Pastor Animarum 3. Sibylla Persica 4. Sibylla Libyca 5. Sibylla Delphica 6. Sibylla Cimmeria 7. Sibylla Baltimoris 8. Sibylla Clevelandiae 9. Sibylla Chicagonis 10. Sibylla Washingtonii 11. Sibylla Philadelphiae 12. Sibylla Camdenis 13. Sibylla Samia 14. Sibylla Cumana 15. Sibylla Hellespontica 16. Sibylla Phrygia 17. Laus Trinitati 18. Sibylla Europaea 19. Sibylla Tiburtina 20. Sibylla Erythraea 21. Sibylla Agrippa 22. I Saw You Under the Fig Tree