01	Claudio Monteverdi - Mass No. 2 in F major - Kyrie						02:40
	02	Claudio Monteverdi - Mass No. 2 in F major - Gloria						04:18
	03	Claudio Monteverdi - Mass No. 2 in F major - Credo						06:32
	04	Claudio Monteverdi - Mass No. 2 in F major - Sanctus						02:33
	05	Claudio Monteverdi - Mass No. 2 in F major - Benedictus						01:39
	06	Claudio Monteverdi - Mass No. 2 in F major - Agnus Dei						01:51
	07	Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame - Kyrie						04:15
	08	Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame - Gloria						05:57
	09	Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame - Credo						07:12
	10	Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame - Sanctus						05:04
	11	Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame - Agnus Dei						03:53
	12	Guillaume de Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame - Ite, misse est						01:32
	13	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Procession						01:54
	14	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Welcome Jole!						01:22
	15	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - There is no Rose						02:11
	16	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - That yongee child						01:34
	17	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Balulalow						01:19
	18	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - As dew in Aprille						01:09
	19	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - This little Babe						01:46
	20	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Interlude						03:08
	21	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - In freezing winter night						02:53
	22	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Spring Carol						01:15
	23	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Deo gratias						01:18
	24	Benjamin Britten - A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28 - Recession						02:12

Guillaume de Machaut
Country France
Birth ca. 1300 in Machaut, Champagne (?), France
Death Apr 13, 1377 in Rheims (?), France
Period Medieval

Biography
Generally acclaimed the greatest composer of the fourteenth century is Guillaume de Machaut, born in Champagne around 1300. In the early 1320s he entered the service of John, Duke of Luxembourg and King of Bohemia, who secured for Machaut various ecclesiastical posts, documented in a series of papal bulls. One of the most important was a canonry at Rheims Cathedral, although there is no evidence that Machaut was ever a practicing clergyman or even particularly pious; indeed, most of his music is secular. He remained in John's service until the latter's death at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, after which his continuing association with high nobility enabled him to travel freely. Around 1350 Machaut found a new patron in Charles, King of Navarre and pretender to the French throne.
Like so many other medieval composers, Machaut was both musician and poet. His works are preserved to a degree astonishing for the fourteenth century: there are manuscripts for hundreds of poems and some 145 musical works. The poems are particularly fascinating for the light they shed on Machaut's own life and times; they record such events as the Black Death, which ravaged Europe in 1348 and 1349, and the Siege of Rheims in the early part of the Hundred Years' War. On a happier level his poetry reveals a love of falconry, riding, and the beauties of the French countryside. In some respects a conservative who built on existing traditions, such as the isorhythmic motet and even the monophonic trouvere song, he was, however, a composer of rare versatility whose music covers a range much wider than that suggested by his most famous work, the Messe de Nostre Dame (Notre Dame Mass).

The fame of that work has tended to obscure Machaut's secular works; his songs are his most characteristic pieces. Lyrical in spirit, with a new emphasis on melody in the top or cantus line, they nevertheless contain considerable subtleties in their manipulation of musical and verbal refrains. One of the most popular of the so-called formes fixes of the day was the virelai, a principal feature of which is that words and music have refrains that do not coincide with each other. Most of Machaut's virelais are monophonic, showing the continuing influence of the trouveres. These represent the most approachable side of his art, particularly in as happy an example as the delightful "Foy Porter." Two other song forms Machaut cultivated were the rondeau and the ballade. A particularly striking example of the latter is "Dame, de qui toute ma joie vieni," a song of infectious rhythmic vitality in praise of the poet's lady. Set polyphonically for four voices, this ballade, like the virelai mentioned above, has three strophic stanzas. The musical form of this and other ballades is A-A-B-C, the last section being a verse refrain.

The celebrity of the Messe de Nostre Dame probably owes much to its place in musical history as the first extant complete mass setting by a single composer. It is however possible that (as with Bach's Mass in B minor) its individual sections were not composed with a view to complete performance, a supposition supported by the work's diversity of styles and absence of thematic unity. Complex isorhythms are applied to all four parts in the shorter-texted sections (Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei), while the Gloria and the Credo are monosyllabic. The title, incidentally, refers not to Notre Dame in Paris, but the great cathedral of Rheims, the coronation place of the kings of France and, as already mentioned, the location of Machaut's canonry. -- Brian Robins




Messe de Nostre Dame, mass for 4 voices
Composer Guillaume de Machaut
Composition Date ca. 1364

Description
The celebrity of Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame probably owes more to repute than close acquaintance; its place in musical history is assured by its being the first extant complete mass setting by a single composer. It is however possible that (as with Bach's Mass in B minor) its individual sections were not composed with a view to complete performance, a supposition given added weight by the diversity of styles and the absence of thematic unity in the mass. Machaut's settings of the Ordinary sections in fact comprise a veritable microcosm of fourteenth-century motet styles, from the complexity and vitality of the isorhythms applied to all four parts in the shorter-texted sections (Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei) to the simpler monosyllabic settings of the Gloria and the Credo. The title, incidentally, refers not to Notre Dame in Paris, but the great cathedral of Rheims, the coronation place of the kings of France and the location of Machaut's canonry. -- Brian Robins








A Ceremony of Carols, for trumpet, voices & harp, Op. 28
Composer Lord Benjamin Britten
Composition Date 1942

Description
Benjamin Britten's decision to leave the United States in 1942 was not easily arrived at, but when he was finally on his way homeward-bound, his troubled conscience -- it was wartime, after all -- seems to have been more than just a little bit soothed. Over the course of the long journey he began a series of choral works (two were finished during the voyage) that have remained among the most thoroughly popular of all his non-operatic compositions. The second of the two works completed on the ship is the now-famous Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28, for treble voices (properly a choir of boys, but more often sung by women's chorus) and harp. (The first piece was the Hymn to St. Cecilia.)
The 12 pieces of the Ceremony of Carols have, over the last half century, become a perennial part of the English-speaking world's Christmastime celebrations. The Ceremony is not Britten's first compilation of holiday music -- A Boy is Born, from almost a decade earlier, has that distinction. In A Boy is Born, Britten used the mixed choir in a very instrumental way. For the Ceremony, on the other hand, Britten adopts a mock-archaic manner that allows him to weave the modal and linear qualities of his sources into his own very different harmonic and structural language.

The Ceremony begins with an a cappella plainsong procession (the traditional Hodie Christus natus est, "Today, Christ is born") and ends with a recession on the same melody. Between these two pillars are nine carols and, between the sixth and seventh carols, a brilliantly evocative solo harp interlude.

The harp's ostinato introduction to the first carol, "Wolcum Yole!" (No. 2, as the procession is "officially" No. 1), sets up the unusual acoustic tone (unmistakably designed to make use of the amplifying powers of large English cathedrals) of the Ceremony. The delicate vocal homophony of No. 2 is maintained throughout the following "There is no Rose," while No. 4, "That younge child," affords the opportunity for one treble soloist to emerge from the semitone-inflected harp background. "Balulalow" (No.5), which alternates soloist with ensemble, is more clearly tonal than No. 4, its F sharp minor context making frequent and, in the end, decisive digressions to the parallel major. "As dew in Aprille" (No. 6) develops the chromatic fluctuations provided in the previous number into an oscillation between E flat major and C major (with the dissonant E flat still riding along on top). The sixth carol, "This little Babe" (No. 7), is surely the most famous of the set. A hemiola-ridden accompaniment provides support for a curiously anxious interpretation of the melody that soon erupts into a driving, three-voice canon in which the voices seem to chase one another without ever actually making any progress in the pursuit. The harp positively shimmers with sonority and texture during its three-minute interlude, providing what is, to many listeners, the most appealing music of the entire Ceremony. "In Freezing Winter Night" (No. 9) sets up major second dissonances against shivering harp tremolos. Two treble soloists emerge, almost lifelessly, during the reprise of the opening. The last two carols, "Spring Carol" (No. 10) and "Adam lay i-bounden" (No. 11) are set up in thoroughly contrasting fashion, though, in fact, they form two parts of one larger musical blueprint. "Spring Carol" rides along a harp ostinato that hints at D major without ever giving us a real resolution, while "Adam lay i- bounden" takes off in motoric fashion after a pair of incisive "deo gratias" gestures. -- blair johnston