Boethius: Songs of Consolation

Boethius: Songs of Consolation

Metra from 11th-century Canterbury
Sequentia - Benjamin Bagby
Glossa GCD 922518 [CD]

Contents:

1. Carmina qui quondam
2. Heu, quam praecipiti
3. Tunc me discussa
4. Quisquis composito
5. O stelliferi conditor
6. Cum Phoebi radiis
7. Nubibus atris
8. Stans a longe (instrumental)
9. Si quantas rapidis
10. Tuba (instrumental)
11. Bella bis quinis
12. Vaga (instrumental)
13. Quid tantos iuvat

Performers: Benjamin Bagby (voice, harps), Hanna Marti (voice, harp), Norbert Rodenkirchen (flutes)

Playing time: 51'

Recording date: July & August 2017 (Cologne); released: 2018

Evidence suggests that the laments in the sixth century work of Boethius were sung, and this is an attempt at reconstruction, with the help of scholar Sam Barrett. They are based primarily on a fragment from the Cambridge Songs (compiled c.1040), boosted by a rediscovered Canterbury source. The instrumental pieces are unrelated, "reconstructed from a contemporary Anglo-Saxon repertory from neaby Winchester."

The earlier Sequentia program based largely on the same Cambridge Songs source, and featuring previous attempts at reconstructing the Boethius melodies:

Lost Songs of the Rhineland Harper

Sequentia - Benjamin Bagby
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 58940

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