Discantus / Brigitte Lesne VON BINGEN Hortus Deliciarum

‘Hortus deliciarum’ is truly a garden of delights, a recital of mainly 12th-century pieces, planned by Marie-Noël Colette and Brigitte Lesne and performed unaccompanied by Discantus. Some of the pieces come from a transcription made in 1818 of Herrad of Landsberg’s wonderful manuscript of that name, sadly destroyed in 1870. Others come from various manuscript sources, including Hildegard von Bingen’s Symphonia Harmoniœ cœlestium revelationum. 

The programme revolves chiefly around the Christmas season, with Mary the Mother of Jesus as the central figure. It begins with five stanzas from Sedulius’s wonderful alphabetical poem, A solis ortus cardine, starting at the letter E, ‘Enixa est puerperal’. We hear a few examples of traditional chants, including pieces of the Proper: the gradual Dilexisti, from the Common of Virgins, and the Offertory Offerentur regi virgines in a particularly beautiful and highly ornamental version. The singers have their own way of interpreting the rhythm of the early notation, and the overall impression of constant flow which they achieve is impressive. Other pieces include several troped items from the Ordinary.

The unison singing is quite remarkable for its clarity and smoothness. The singers have discovered, too, how to manage repercussions, subtly but entirely convincingly. The ordering of the recital, with its frequent use of First Mode pieces juxtaposed, and its judicious groupings, is successful and never monotonous. The listener is left with a good sense of how sacred music was developing in the 12th century by leaps and bounds in so many directions, even to the extent of cantillated readings being occasionally sung in three parts. (Gramophone)