Chant Mozarabe - Cathedrale de Tolede (15th century) /Ensemble Organum * Peres [Import]

Ensemble Organum (Artist), Mozarabic Chant (Composer), Marcel Peres (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Marcel Peres
• Composer: Mozarabic Chant
• Audio CD (June 20, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
• ASIN: B00000079Y
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,675 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Office Des Lectures: Invocation Sacerdotale D'intro: Per Gloriam Nominis Tui - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

2. Office Des Lectures: Officium: Alleluia, Ortus Conclusus - Jerome Casalonga

3. Office Des Lectures: Goria in Excelsis Deo - Jerome Casalonga

4. Office Des Lectures: Benedictus Es (Hymne Des Trois Enfants Dans La Fournaise) - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

5. Office Des Lectures: Psallendo: Beatus Vir (Commun D'un Pontife Martyr) - Lycourgos Angelopoulos/Malcolm Bothwell

6. Office Des Lectures: Evangile: Mathieu, 24, 27-35 - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

7. Office Des Lectures: Lauda: Alleluia Exultabit Justus (Commun D'un Pontife Martyr) - Jean-Pierre Lanfranchi

8. Office Des Lectures: Preces: Penitentes Orate (Monition Diaconale) - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

9. Office Des Lectures: Sacrificium: Vox Clamantis (Dimanche Avant La St. Jean Baptiste) - Jean-Etienne Langiani

10. Priere Eucharistique: Petre: Gratias Dei Patris - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

11. Priere Eucharistique: Chor: Pacem Meam Do Vobis - Jean-Pierre Lanfranchi

12. Priere Eucharistique: Pretre: Introibo Ad Altare Dei - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

13. Priere Eucharistique: Preface - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

14. Priere Eucharistique: Sanctus - Ens Organum/Marcel Peres

15. Priere Eucharistique: Ad Confractionem Panis: Qui Venit Ad Me Non Esuriet - Jerome Casalonga

16. Priere Eucharistique: Pretre: Humiliate Vos Ad Benedictionem! - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

17. Priere Eucharistique: Ad Accedentes: Gustate Et Videte - Marcel Peres/Frederic Richard

18. Priere Eucharistique: Diacre: Vicit Leo De Tribu Juda - Jean-Etienne Langiani

19. Priere Eucharistique: Lauda: Speravit (Lucernarium Pour Les Vepres) - Lycourgos Angelopoulos/Malcolm Bothwell

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Latin Mass meets the Arab Moors, August 20, 2001

By 

Timothy D. Thomas (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chant Mozarabe - Cathedrale de Tolede (15th century) /Ensemble Organum * Peres (Audio CD)

Marcel Peres has done a fine job of recording an excellent representation (and in the process made available) of one of the rarest and least-known of all liturgical traditions.

The Mozarabic Rite, which survives in the Spanish cathedrals of Toledo and Salamanca alone, is a sumptuous feast for the ears and senses. Combining the immortal Latin phraseology of the Mass and its various parts, the Mozarabic tradition colors them with a temperament totally unique. Diverging from the unadorned, simple, appropriately named plain-chant of the Gregorian tradition, the Mozarabic formula incorporates Arab musical influences to the most Christian of events, the sacrifice of the Mass and holy communion.

Peres' Ensemble Organum does a head-dizzying job of making the melismatas (long variations and note changes on one vowel or sound) breathlessly exciting to listen to. Its apparent at once that this music is singular among the world's traditions, and deserves to be heard by more people. It is a masterful recording, done in Toledo's Capilla Mozarabe (Mozarabic Chapel) in the Cathedral, and even without the visual stimulation of the church, the music alone with the magnificent acoustics transports the listener 1,000 years back to days when the Christian Mozarabes developed a rite all their own amidst Islamic controlled Moorish Spain. This disc should be of interest to any sociologist or historian of Spain and especially Spain of the Mediaeval Age. The political and social confrontations of the two cultures - European Christian and Arabic Muslim - produce an exotic result that we may enjoy today.

The music is first-rate, but if another reason is needed, it is the rarity of this type of recording. A low-priced, excellent disc of this repertoire is, quite simply, impossible to find elsewhere. You may find a track on perhaps one or two other chronological collections of western liturgical music, but no other complete recording exists devoted wholly to the style. Marcel Peres is known for his exhaustive research into authenticity and his drive to accurately record liturgical rites as they were really heard in their heyday - and in this instance he performs admirably. Participate in the Mass of the Mozarabic people and enjoy an experience that will undoubtedly highlight the cultural connection between east and west and may also spark an interest in further exploration of the rite and its times!

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mozarabic Chant - Emphasis on ARABIC, March 24, 2006

By 

M. Haney (Alpharetta, GA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chant Mozarabe - Cathedrale de Tolede (15th century) /Ensemble Organum * Peres (Audio CD)

I'm sure other reviewers comments about this work and generally about Mozarabic chant in general are true. Christianity originated in the east and Mozarabic chant's less polished, austere qualities most likely resembles ancient christian chant. The quality of the work is unquestioned.

But for a person whose hearing sensibilities have been so influenced by western gregorian chant, the heavy arabic influence in the music may prove a hard listen for the western ear.

You definately want to listen to the samples before purchase.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mozarabic chant has no arabic influence; the sounds are eastern christianity not arabic, November 27, 2010

By 

D. Fernandez-morera "Aletheia" (usa) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Chant Mozarabe - Cathedrale de Tolede (15th century) /Ensemble Organum * Peres (Audio CD)

Mozarabic chant has nothing arabic about it just as the Mozarabs had nothing arab about them, since they were the Christians who remained in the land after the Muslim invasion. They learned Arabic of course, were forced to circumcise, and so on, but they struggled to keep their Christian traditions and culture in the face of hegemonic Islam, until finally they disappeared through conversions, escaping to the Catholic North, and expulsions. By the thirteenth century there were few Christians (mozarabs) in Islamic Spain. The presumably arabic sounds are not arabic but Greek Orthodox. The reason is that Mozarabs in Spain shared the form of Christianity prevalent throughout the Greek Orthodox Roman Empire. That is why this music, more accurately, sounds "byzantine." And by the way, if anything, it was Greek Orthodox music that influenced Arabic music. The bedouins had very primitive forms of music and instruments before the Islamic conquest of the Greek Orthodox Middle East and North Africa in the late seventh and early eight centuries.