Notes
O Maria virgo florata nigi stillans dilue - O virgin Mary of flowers, chase the snow away « O Maria Virgo » is a reconstruction of a two-part mass as the female Cistercians of the 13th and 14th century abbey Santa Maria of Las Huelgas might have sung. Most of the chants can be traced to a parchment manuscript of Las Huelgas containing 45 monodic and 141 polyphonic compositions. The corpus of chants, even though it is not an explicit liturgical collection, might well have been used for important feasts during the liturgical year. The four monodic plancti from the collection were probably performed during funerals of the Royal family. For this recording we have chosen both liturgical and para-liturgical chants for the nativity of Mary: troped and polyphonic chants for the ordinary (Kyrie eleison, Sanctus, Agnus dei) and for the proper (Alleluia, gradual, offertory), a three-part Benedicamus domino as well as two hymns for Mary. The important collection of chants from Las Huelgas is outstanding in mediaeval music tradition and shows many different styles of this time between ars antiqua and ars nova. There are chants in the style of Aquitanian polyphony with their two-part tropes or organa from the Notre-Dame school of Paris, two of the oldest polyphonic chant traditions in the 11th and 12th centuries which have been transmitted in manuscripts. Otherwise there are monodic and polyphonic chants in honour of the virgin showing a highly original style from the Las Huelgas Cistercian abbey. The programme is completed by Gregorian chants from the 11th-century Gaillac gradual (BNF lat. 776), Aquitanian monasteries being very closely related to Christian communities on the Iberian Peninsula. The Abbey Santa Maria la Real of Las Huelgas was one of the most important Castilian monasteries and a cultural centre during the Middle Ages where Cistercian nuns have been living for centuries. The chant manuscript can be considered a document of that high period. Although the Cistercian ideals of sobriety and purity seem not to be followed completely in this abbey, the female members of the royal family retired to the convent for a contemplative life and daily liturgical chant with the community. On the recording, the mass starts with the two-part prosa Maria virgo virginum, a strophic composition in the typical conductus style of Las Huelgas. Then, we inserted the beautiful cantiga de Santa Maria Rosa das rosas like a small meditation. This cantiga is noted in the 13th century codex B.1.2. from El Escorial, an impressive collection of Maria-chants in Gallician language collected at the court of Alfonso X the Wise of Castile. After that the introitus Salve sancta parens in plagal d-mode from the Aquitanian manuscript Gaillac BNF lat. 776 follows. The small trope Virgo dei genitrix has been inserted before the first psalm verse Eructavit cor meum and comes back later during the graduale as verse. The two-part Kyrie eleison from Las Huelgas with it's trope Rex virginum shows the characteristic style of the Parisian Notre-Dame school. The Gregorian Gloria has been taken from the aquitanian Saint-Yrieix gradual BNF lat. 903. One of the most interesting compositions of this mass is the gradual Benedicta et venerabilis, a knowing mixture of a plainchant from Gaillac with a two-part organum from Las Huelgas. The first word Benedicta and part of the verse Virgo dei genitrix are sung in two parts to mark the high importance of the liturgical occasion. A beautiful two-part alleluia with it's verse Salve virgo mater dei shows the simple but very elegant crossing and folding of the two voices. Then the hymn Stabat iuxta Christi crucem, a magnificent monodic plaint of a musical style which is typical of the Cistercian convent in Las Huelgas, is to be heard, and the two-part offertory Recordare virgo mater in the Las Huelgas-organum-style with three double-strophic tropes at the end. The polyphonic Sanctus to follow, also for two voices, seems to ann
