Recordings

The Sword and the Lily

15th-century polyphony for Judgement Day

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Released October 2022 with Inventa Records

This, Fount & Origin’s debut album, leads me to hope for many sequels. […] they produce a warm, clear, luminous sound, with the parts beautifully blended yet clearly articulated. […] While some of the texts contain dire warnings, the music (often mixing plainchant with polyphony) is full of gorgeous sonorities and graceful melodies.

BBc music magazine (☆☆☆☆☆)

In our debut album, Fount & Origin presents a musical meditation on the Franco-Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden’s altarpiece image of The Last Judgement at the End of Time. This multi-panelled work survives as a monument of fifteenth-century art, relating in vivid detail and colour van der Weyden’s dynamic and terrifying account of the world’s final moments.

The nine polyphonic settings recorded here were composed in Europe in the mid- to late-fifteenth century and include works by composers such as Johannes Ockeghem, Johannes Regis, Johannes Martini and Antoine Brumel, with each piece thematically tied to an element or figure in the painting.

I am enormously fond of a good programme concept […] The opening track, Johannes Ockeghem’s Domine Jesu Christe showcases the rich, low-pitch sound of these voices, balancing tight ensemble and clarity with beauty of line. […] Three features are particularly worthy of note: the arc of the programme itself, peaking with the joyful and sonorous Exultet celum laudibus (Anon) and comforting with the sublime Urbs beata Jerusalem; the carefully aligned vowels of the singers (listen to the opening of Ut queant laxis, for example); and finally, the splendid phrasing of the top line shared by altos Guy James and Joy Sutcliffe. […] The vocal beauty and the subtlety of the performance signal a debut of note.

Gramophone magazine
© Resonus Classics 2022

Credits

Fount & Origin

Joy Sutcliffe, Guy James, alto

Matthew Pope, Andrew Doll, Joseph Mason, tenor

Theodore Nisbett, baritone

Grantley McDonald, Max Cheung, bass

James Tomlinson, director

Producer, engineer & editor Adam Binks

Cover Image Detail from The Last Judgement altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464)

This recording was made possible by the generous support of the Stile Antico Foundation and Adam Hodge.

Track List

1. Requiem: Domine Jesu Christe, Johannes Ockeghem (c.1410–1497) [7:26] 

2. Exultet celum laudibus, Anonymous [5:59]

3. Clare sanctorum senatus, Anonymous [4:10]

4. Missa L’homme armé / Dum sacrum mysterium: Kyrie, Johannes Regis (c.1425–c.1496) [6:30] 

5. Ut queant laxis, Anonymous [8:19]

6. Magnificat (Mode IV), Johannes Martini (c.1430–1497) [10:45]

7. Venite benedicti patris, Anonymous [2:22]

8. Urbs beata Jerusalem, Anonymous [8:44]

9. Requiem: Dies irae, Antoine Brumel (c.1460–c.1512/13) [13:38]

Total playing time [67:57]