The Spy's Choirbook English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble

• 1Celeste beneficium03:26
• 2Adiutorium nostrum03:08
• 3Nesciens mater03:15
• 4Ave regina caelorum03:05
• 5Descendi in hortum meum03:20
• 6Sancta trinitas unus Deus03:14
• 7Vexilla Regis - Passio Domini nostri02:05
• 8Fama malum02:45
• 9Quis dabit pacem: Doleo super te02:50
• 10O Domine Iesu Christe - Et sanctissima mater tua04:00
• 11Maxsimilla Christo amabilis02:22
• 12Sancta Maria succurre miseris - O werder mondt03:26
• 13Sancta et immaculata virginitas02:06
• 14Missus est Gabriel angelus03:02
• 15Dulcissima virgo Maria02:23
• 16Tolca purche es - Salve regina04:03
• 17O sancta Maria virgo virginum03:36
• 18Verbum bonum et soave03:02
• 19Recordamini quomodo praedixit filium04:00
• 20O beatissime Domine Iesu Christe - Fac me de tua gratia05:15
• 21Ave Sanctissima Maria03:48
• 22Ecce Maria genuit nobis02:37
• 23Congratulamini mihi omnes03:04
• 24Egregie Christi martir Christophore - Ecce enim05:34
• 25Alma redemptoris mater04:37
• 26Dulces exuviae03:37
• 27Dulces exuviae03:48
• 28Dulces exuviae03:25
• 29Dulces exuviae03:12
• 30Dulces exuviae03:17
• 31Absalon, fili mi03:57
• 32Iesus autem transiens02:20
• 33Anima mea - Invenerunt - Filiae Ierusalem05:08
• 34Tribulatio et angustia invenerunt me02:37
• Total Runtime01:55:24

Info for The Spy's Choirbook

The sumptuous and richly illuminated choir-book, Royal 8.G.vii, is widely acknowledged as one of the finest early 16th-century musical manuscripts in the British Library. It was produced in the workshop of Petrus Alamire, who was head of one of the greatest musical scriptoriums in all of Europe, and the source of a great number of royal diplomatic gifts. Alamire was not only a scribe and musician, but also a mining engineer, merchant and diplomat.

Between 1515 and 1518 he travelled to London as a spy for Henry VIII against Richard de la Pole, the then pretender to the English throne. Alamire was aided by a Flemish sackbut player, and certainly early brass instruments travelled with him to London on at least one occasion. The book was probably given to Henry VIII in 1516 as one of the several musical gifts from Alamire to the Henry VIII.

It is certainly the most luxurious of the surviving diplomatic gifts to the Tudor court from the 16th century, and contains 28 Latin motets as well as six works on texts from Virgil’s Aeneid by the finest Continental composers of the age, including Josquin Desprez, Antoine de Févin, Jean Mouton, Heinrich Isaac; well over half the compositions are anonymous and most have never been performed in modern times.

“The performances are meticulous, the recorded sound rich and warm, and the effect often sumptuous, though at times perhaps a bit too dense for some tastes” (The Guardian)

“Teasing title, glorious music...The history is fascinating; so is the fabulous music, a tour d’horizon of early 16th-century polyphony, sonorously delivered by the choir Alamire and English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble under David Skinner.” (The Times)

Alamire & English Cornett
Sackbut Ensemble
David Skinner, conductor

No biography found.

Booklet for The Spy's Choirbook