Scattered Rhymes Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir; Orlando Consort & Paul Hillier

• Tarik O'Regan (b.1978): Scattered Rhymes (2006)
• 1I. Part I05:48
• 2II. Part II04:36
• 3III. Part III05:34
• Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377): Messe de Nostre Dame
• 4I. Kyrie06:12
• 5II. Gloria04:11
• 6III. Credo05:50
• 7IV. Sanctus03:57
• 8V. Agnus Dei03:17
• 9VI. Ite missa est01:03
• Guillaume Dufay (1400-1474): Ave Regina celorum
• 10Ave Regina celorum07:03
• Gavin Bryars (b.1943): Super flumina (2000)
• 11Super flumina06:35
• Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377): Douce dame jolie
• 12Douce dame jolie02:50
• Tarik O'Regan (b.1978): Virelai: Douce dame jolie (2007)
• 13Virelai - Douce dame jolie04:43
• Total Runtime01:01:39

Info for Scattered Rhymes

On this fascinating recording, Paul Hillier leads the Orlando Consort and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir in the world premiere recording of Scattered Rhymes - a vibrant and powerful new work by Tarik O’Regan (born 1978). O'Regan, a two-time British Composer Award winner, was educated at Oxford University and completed his postgraduate studies at Cambridge, where he was subsequently appointed Composer in Residence at Corpus Christi College. O’Regan now divides his time between Trinity College, Cambridge and New York City, where he has held the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship in Music Composition at Columbia University and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard. In Scattered Rhymes (2006), the composer interlaces two fourteenth-century texts that toy with the ambiguities of intertwining sensuous and divine love. To reinforce the work's Medieval connections, Scattered Rhymes is designed to be framed or paired with Guillaume de Machaut’s Messe de Notre Dame (circa 1364). This seminal work is brilliantly performed here by the Orlando Consort. Completing this inventive program are two motets: Ave Regina Coelorum by Guillaume Dufay (c. 1400-1474) and the haunting Super Flumina by Gavin Bryars (born 1943).

Machaut's extraordinary Messe de Nostre Dame was not only the first complete mass setting in history, but also the first whose composer can be identified, making it emblematic of the Ars Nova style of the 14th century. In this recording, the Orlando Consort performs the mass in parallel with a work by Tarik O'Regan (born in 1978) which was inspired by it. Scattered Rhymes links two texts from the same period as Machaut's mass, one by Petrarch, the other an anonymous English poem. Both of them subtly combine earthly and divine love, while the music blends polyphonic tradition and contemporary inspiration.

Scattered Rhymes was commissioned by the Spitalfields Festival and first performed with The Joyful Company of Singers. O'Regan's Douce dame jolie was commissioned by the Orlando Consort. Super flumina by Gavin Bryars was commissioned by the National Centre for Early Music,York. Ave Regina celorum by Guillaume Dufay is sung from an edition by Gareth Curtis.

Two-time British Composer Award winner Tarik O'Regan was educated at Oxford University and completed his postgraduate studies at Cambridge. He now divides his time between Trinity College, Cambridge, where he is Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts, and New York City, where he has held the Fulbright Chester Schirmer Fellowship at Columbia University and a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard.

Gavin Bryars, born in Yorkshire, was first of all a jazz bassist and pioneer of free improvisation with Derek Bailey and Tony Oxley. His early iconic works The Sinking of the Titanic (1969) and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971), both enjoyed major recording success. He has written extensively for early music performers such as the Hilliard Ensemble, Red Byrd and Trio Medieval, and for the Estonian National Male Choir and the Latvian Radio Choir.

The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir's repertoire ranges from Gregorian chant to 20th-century music, with special emphasis on Estonian composers like Arvo Pärt and Veljo Tormis. Many of the Choir's recordings have received the highest critical acclaim, including 5 Grammy nominations and a Grammy Award (Arvo Pärt, Da Pacem).Their conductor, Paul Hillier enjoys close creative relationships with a number of contemporary composers, most notably Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. In 2007, he prepared Stockhausen's Stimmung with Theatre of Voices for a UK tour and subsequent recording.

Since its formation in 1988, the award-winning Orlando Consort has been hailed as the most imaginative champion of vocal music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; it now records exclusively for harmonia mundi USA.

“The four male voices of the Orlando Consort bring vigour and tonal variety to Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, and its tenor Mark Dobell gives a lilting account of the composer's song Douce dame jolie. Tarik O'Regan's Virelai on the same tune then makes playful, contrapuntal use of its melodies. His Scattered Rhymes, inspired by the Mass, pairs the Consort in medieval English poetry with Paul Hillier's choir in texts by Petrarch: a vivid meditation on earthly and divine love. The Consort's perceptive accounts of Du Fay's Ave Regina celorum and Gavin Bryars's Super flumina complete the picture.” (The Daily Telegraph)

“This collection has been programmed with considerable care. Machaut's glorious Messe de Nostre Dame forms its centre, both in terms of its musical substance and its famously provocative rhythmic and harmonic structure.” (BBC Magazine)

“Vocal treats in a meeting of old-fashioned sense and modern sensuality” (Gramophone)

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Orlando Consort
Paul Hillier, conductor

No biography found.

Booklet for Scattered Rhymes