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Libera Nos: The Cry of the Oppressed
Various composers

Contrapunctus / Rees

Libera Nos: The Cry of the Oppressed

Price: € 14.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212033821
Catnr: SIGCD 338
Release date: 01 September 2013
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Label
Signum Classics
UPC
0635212033821
Catalogue number
SIGCD 338
Release date
01 September 2013
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN
NL

About the album

Coupling powerful interpretations with path-breaking scholarship, the choir Contrapunctus presents music by the best-known composers as well as unfamiliar masterpieces. Directed by Owen Rees, a specialist in music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the group presents imaginative programmes revealing previously undiscovered musical treasures and throwing new light on familiar works. This recording explores the musical ‘cries of the oppressed’ from opposite ends of Europe, which include some of the most powerful works composed in England and Portugal during this period by Byrd, Tallis, Monte and Cardoso. The highlight perhaps is the first recording of a newly reconstructed vocal work by Thomas Tallis, Libera nos. This has long been thought to be an instrumental work, and has been recorded as such, but there’s persuasive historical evidence for us to be confident that this is in fact a choral setting of the antiphon Libera nos, and it is performed here with the relevant text restored to the five vocal parts.

Contrapunctus combineert krachtige interpretaties met baanbrekende wetenschap onder leiding van Owen Rees
Het koor Contrapunctus brengt zowel muziek van bekende componisten als onbekende meesterwerken ten gehore, en weet keer op keer krachtige interpretaties te combineren met belangrijk muziekwetenschappelijk onderzoek. Onder leiding van Owen Rees, een specialist in 16e- en 17-eeuwse muziek, presenteert de groep verrassende programma's die onontdekte muzikale schatten onthullen en een nieuw licht werpen op bekende werken.

Dit album onderzoekt de muzikale 'kreten van zij die ondrukt worden' vanuit alle uiteinden van Europa, en omvat enkele van de meest krachtige werken gecomponeerd in de 16e en 17e eeuw in Engeland en Portugal door Byrd, Tallis, Monte en Cardoso. Het hoogtepunt van het album is misschien wel de eerste opname van een nieuw gereconstrueerd vocaal werk van Thomas Tallis, Libera Nos. Er werd lange tijd gedacht dat het werk voor een instrumentale bezetting was, en werd als zodanig opgenomen. Er is nu echter overtuigend historisch bewijs dat erop wijst dat het werk in feite een koraalzetting is van de antifoon Libera Nos. Op deze opname wordt het werk uitgevoerd met de tekst van deze antifoon en is de bezetting teruggezet naar de oorspronkelijke vijf zangpartijen.

Artist(s)

Contrapunctus

Coupling powerful interpretations with pathbreaking scholarship, Contrapunctus presents music by the best known composers as well as unfamiliar masterpieces. The group’s repertoire is drawn from England, the Low Countries, Spain, Portugal and Germany, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The scholarly facet of the group’s work – including the discovery of long-lost music and reconstructions of original performing contexts – allows audiences to experience the first performances of many works in modern times. Since its foundation in 2010, the group has appeared in the AMUZ Festival in Antwerp, the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the Festival van Vlaanderen in Mechelen and Averbode, the Music Sacra Festival in Maastricht, the Festival de Música Antigua de Úbeda y Baeza in Spain, the...
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Coupling powerful interpretations with pathbreaking scholarship, Contrapunctus presents music by the best known composers as well as unfamiliar masterpieces. The group’s repertoire is drawn from England, the Low Countries, Spain, Portugal and Germany, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The scholarly facet of the group’s work – including the discovery of long-lost music and reconstructions of original performing contexts – allows audiences to experience the first performances of many works in modern times. Since its foundation in 2010, the group has appeared in the AMUZ Festival in Antwerp, the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the Festival van Vlaanderen in Mechelen and Averbode, the Music Sacra Festival in Maastricht, the Festival de Música Antigua de Úbeda y Baeza in Spain, the Eboræ Musica Festival and Setúbal Festival in Portugal, the concert series at De Bijloke in Ghent, and the Martin Randall Festival of Spanish Music (Seville Cathedral). The ensemble’s first two recordings, Libera nos and In the Midst of Life, were both shortlisted for the Gramophone Early Music Award. As Vocal Consort in Residence at the University of Oxford, the group is a collaborator in the Tudor Partbooks Project, the aim of which is to study the Baldwin partbooks and other sets of Tudor partbooks, to restore the missing voice parts of the repertories they contain, and to broaden public knowledge of this repertory.

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Owen Rees (conductor)

Owen Rees is both performer and scholar, his scholarship consistently informing his performances.  Through his extensive work as a choral director, he has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance and Baroque music, including many previously unknown or little-known works from Spain and Portugal. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field.   He has conducted at festivals worldwide, and is increasingly busy as a leader of workshops on performance of Renaissance polyphony. He has broadcast...
more
Owen Rees is both performer and scholar, his scholarship consistently informing his performances. Through his extensive work as a choral director, he has brought to the concert hall and recording studio substantial repertories of magnificent Renaissance and Baroque music, including many previously unknown or little-known works from Spain and Portugal. His interpretations of these repertories have been acclaimed as ‘rare examples of scholarship and musicianship combining to result in performances that are both impressive and immediately attractive to the listener’, and he has been described as ‘one of the most energetic and persuasive voices’ in this field. He has conducted at festivals worldwide, and is increasingly busy as a leader of workshops on performance of Renaissance polyphony. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4, and on Portuguese, Spanish, and Norwegian radio. He has released CD recordings on the Hyperion, Signum, and Avie labels to consistently high critical acclaim and his work has been shortlisted for the Gramophone Early Music Award.
Owen Rees began his academic and conducting career as Organ Scholar at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, studying with Peter le Huray and Iain Fenlon. After a period as College Lecturer in Music at St Peter’s College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he joined the Music Department at the University of Surrey, where he was promoted to the post of Reader. In 1997 he returned to Oxford, where—in addition to his posts of Fellow in Music at The Queen’s College and Director of Music of the Choir of The Queen's College—he is Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College and a Professor in the Faculty of Music. His numerous published studies include work on the Spanish composers Cristóbal de Morales and Francisco Guerrero and the English composer William Byrd.

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