Composer: Guillaume Dufay
Performer: The Binchois Consort
Conductor: Andrew Kirkman
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hyperion
Catalogue: CDA66997
Release: 1998
Size: 302 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Missa Sancti Jacobi
01. I. Introit
02. II. Kyrie
03. III. Gloria
04. IV. Alleluia
05. V. Credo
06. VI. Offertory
07. VII. Sanctus
08. VIII. Agnus Dei
09. IX. Communio
10. Rite majorem Jacobum canamus / Arcibus summis miseri reclusi
11. Balsamus et munda cera
Gloria and Credo
12. I. Gloria
13. II. Credo
14. Apostolo glorioso
This is a glorious disc: superb performances of truly wonderful music. St James the Greater, Apostle of Christ, foster son of the Virgin Mary, brother of St John the Evangelist, and indeliblyif somewhat perplexinglyassociated with Compostela, became the focus of many composers; after all, anyone who was anyone in the Middle Ages (including Chaucer’s Wife of Bath) would make a pilgrimage to St James’s shrine in Spain at some point in their life. The exact background to Dufay’s Mass is as yet unknown but it is an enormous work (forty minutes plus) of great passion. Also included on this disc are three motets composed around the same time as the Mass, and a Gloria/Credo pairing, remarkable for up-beat, if irreverent, interpolations of snippets from Italian and French popular songs during the ‘Amens’.