Product Description
Mary Berry's expertise in the field of plainsong and medieval music, blended with the exquisite clarity of both the Schola Gregoriana and the Winchester Cathedral choristers, has produced a recording that is impressive and authentic. Aberlard was forced to end his passionate affair with his lover Heloise when her uncle castrated him, but a new profound relationship was formed as Abelard replaced his love songs with hymns and sequences for the Abbess Heloise of the Abbey of the Paraclete. The music gives us a glimpse of this story with it's often melancholy and yearning phrases. And yet we are also treated to a great variety of emotion by Abelard, ranging from the naive purity of "Mater Salvatoris" to the dramatic portrayal of Christ's death and resurrection in "Sponsus". Due to the fact that the liturgical manuscripts of this music were only relatively recently discovered, Abelard's music is little known and few if any other recording's exist. This seems a tragic shame as his musical and poetic talent offers a unique and attractive rendering of the medieval sound that so many have come to esteem. --
Caroline Jellyman