Missa in Gallicantu
The music of a Christmas Mass c. 1555 with the Sarum plainsongs and John Shepherd 's
Te Deum and Missa Cantate IAN PARTRIDGE (tenor) MICHAEL RIPPON (bass) SCUOLA DI CHIESA
Conductor, JOHN HOBAN
Introduced by BRUNO TURNER
Liturgical dramas like The Play of Herod were the source of our theatre, but there has always been a dramatic element in Roman Catholic ritual, though this is lost in concert performances of the Mass. Bruno Turner has reconstructed the First Mass of Christmas as it would have been sung in Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford, where John Shepherd was Master of the Choristers from 1542-1556. Besides Shepherd's six-part choral Te Deum and Mass we shall hear, in their proper sequence, the Sarum plainsongs and Shepherd's two-voice setting of the Lesson. Thus restored by scholarship, the whole work matches the elaborate splendour of the medieval cathedrals. BASIL LAM