The Orlando Consort cordially extends an invitation to American choirs to join us in a magical evocation of English music from more than 500 years ago — and the present.  This is music of intense passion and committed belief, with the power to raise the human spirit and urge us all to reach out towards a better world.

At the end of the Middle Ages and in the early years of the Renaissance, English composers and musicians, led by such figures as John Dunstaple, Leonel Power, and Walter Frye, were respected as being the very best in Europe.  Not only this, but their work bore influence upon that of their European contemporaries in a manner that was not to be repeated until the era of the Beatles.

Yet frustratingly little of the music in question has survived — decay, war, and politics from the time of King Henry VIII onwards devastated the work of previous centuries.  A few royal manuscripts survived along with pieces that had already been copied into foreign sources, but this represents only a tiny fraction of what was clearly an enormous body of work.

Remarkably, however, some of this music has re-emerged.  The parchment upon which it was written was considered too valuable to be burnt and was instead used for such varied tasks as lining shoes, wrapping fish, and binding new books.  It is from uncovering these books that fragments have emerged, like the Phoenix, providing a tantalizing glimpse of this lost musical world.  In some cases, large enough sections have been recovered to enable the complete reconstruction of a motet or mass movement; in other cases only a few notes show up.  A selection of this magnificent music can be heard on the Consort’s acclaimed recording The Call of the Phoenix (HMU 907297, Gramophone’s Early Music CD of 2003).

The cornerstone of this program is the strikingly beautiful Caput Mass, written by an anonymous composer sometime around the year 1435.  The Consort will undertake the virtuoso polyphony lines, inviting local choirs to contribute the gloriously free-spirited Plainsong sections that punctuate the movements of the Mass.

The Orlando Consort has chosen to celebrate the re-emergence of this wonderful music by pairing it with Scattered Rhymes, a new work scored for the Orlando Consort and Choir by the brilliant young British composer Tarik O’Regan, who is currently serving on the faculties of both Columbia and Yale Universities.  This dynamic piece, based on medieval motifs, is a true celebration of the timeless nature of great music and leads to an understanding that our links with our ancestors are stronger than we might sometimes imagine.