a byzantine emperor at king henry's court

Planet Hugill Review

A Byzantine Emperor at King Henry's Court

the singers are clearly steeped in the stylistic world of this music and it shows in their freedom, flexibility and that sense of an ensemble performing this regularly.…

“The music is performed with an intriguing mix of scholarship and freedom. Whilst scholarship can reconstruct the surviving manuscripts, we know that both traditions had elements of freedom and improvisation and that is what makes this group special, their ability to bring this out. What is fascinating about the disc is the way the interleaving of music from two different rites highlights both the differences and the commonalities of the performances. … This isn’t a liturgical reconstruction, that would take a whole host of discs as both traditions involved long liturgical events, but instead gives us a chance to hear both traditions side by side.… the singers are clearly steeped in the stylistic world of this music and it shows in their freedom, flexibility and that sense of an ensemble performing this regularly. The Sarum chant is sung with a beautiful sense of line and fluidity, with the polyphony having a fine directness to the sound. The Byzantine has a wonderful vibrancy to it and a sense of real vividness, and they also manage to give the rhythmically repetitive elements of the chant a lovely sense of the dance, a feature that I have noticed before in this music.”

–Robert Hugill