The Spy's Choirbook English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble

• 1 Celeste beneficium 03:26
• 2 Adiutorium nostrum 03:08
• 3 Nesciens mater 03:15
• 4 Ave regina caelorum 03:05
• 5 Descendi in hortum meum 03:20
• 6 Sancta trinitas unus Deus 03:14
• 7 Vexilla Regis - Passio Domini nostri 02:05
• 8 Fama malum 02:45
• 9 Quis dabit pacem: Doleo super te 02:50
• 10 O Domine Iesu Christe - Et sanctissima mater tua 04:00
• 11 Maxsimilla Christo amabilis 02:22
• 12 Sancta Maria succurre miseris - O werder mondt 03:26
• 13 Sancta et immaculata virginitas 02:06
• 14 Missus est Gabriel angelus 03:02
• 15 Dulcissima virgo Maria 02:23
• 16 Tolca purche es - Salve regina 04:03
• 17 O sancta Maria virgo virginum 03:36
• 18 Verbum bonum et soave 03:02
• 19 Recordamini quomodo praedixit filium 04:00
• 20 O beatissime Domine Iesu Christe - Fac me de tua gratia 05:15
• 21 Ave Sanctissima Maria 03:48
• 22 Ecce Maria genuit nobis 02:37
• 23 Congratulamini mihi omnes 03:04
• 24 Egregie Christi martir Christophore - Ecce enim 05:34
• 25 Alma redemptoris mater 04:37
• 26 Dulces exuviae 03:37
• 27 Dulces exuviae 03:48
• 28 Dulces exuviae 03:25
• 29 Dulces exuviae 03:12
• 30 Dulces exuviae 03:17
• 31 Absalon, fili mi 03:57
• 32 Iesus autem transiens 02:20
• 33 Anima mea - Invenerunt - Filiae Ierusalem 05:08
• 34 Tribulatio et angustia invenerunt me 02:37
• Total Runtime 01:55:24

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