Hildegard of Bingen OSB,, also known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by a number of scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
Guillaume de Machaut was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the ars nova style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to separate the ars nova from the subsequent ars subtilior movement. Regarded as the most significant French composer and poet of the 14th century, he is often seen as the century's leading European composer.
Ars nova refers to a musical style which flourished in the Kingdom of France and its surroundings during the Late Middle Ages. More particularly, it refers to the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel (1310s) and the death of composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377. The term is sometimes used more generally to refer to all European polyphonic music of the fourteenth century. For instance, the term "Italian ars nova" is sometimes used to denote the music of Francesco Landini and his compatriots, although Trecento music is the more common term for the contemporary 14th-century music in Italy. The "ars" in "ars nova" can be read as "technique", or "style". The term was first used in two musical treatises, titled Ars novae musicae by Johannes de Muris, and a collection of writings attributed to Philippe de Vitry often simply called "Ars nova" today. Musicologist Johannes Wolf first applied to the term as description of an entire era in 1904.
Francisco de Peñalosa was a Spanish composer of the middle Renaissance.
Benjamin Bagby is an American singer, composer, harpist, and performer of medieval music.
Hyperion Records is a British classical music record label. It was independent until February 2023, when it was acquired by the Universal Music Group. Under Universal, Hyperion is one of the three main classical record labels, alongside Decca and Deutsche Grammophon.
Dame Carolyn Emma Kirkby, is an English soprano and early music specialist. She has sung on over 100 recordings.
The Taverner Choir, Consort and Players is a British music ensemble which specialises in the performance of Early and Baroque music. The ensemble is made up of a Baroque orchestra, a vocal consort and a Choir. Performers place emphasis on a historically informed performance practice and players work with restored or replicated period instruments.
Solage, possibly Jean So(u)lage, was a French composer, and probably also a poet. He composed the most pieces in the Chantilly Codex, the principal source of music of the ars subtilior, the manneristic compositional school centered on Avignon at the end of the century.
Hilliard Ensemble was a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. The group was named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard. Founded in 1974, the group disbanded in 2014.
Sequentia is an early music ensemble, founded in 1977 by Benjamin Bagby and Barbara Thornton. The group specializes mainly in Medieval music. Sequentia focuses particularly on music with texts, specifically chants and other stories with music, such as the Icelandic Edda. They are interested in the interplay between drama and music, and sometimes do partially staged performances, such as that of Hildegard of Bingen's Ordo Virtutum. Bagby and Thornton have both been active in original research on the projects they perform.
Messe de Nostre Dame is a polyphonic mass composed before 1365 by French poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut. Widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of medieval music and of all religious music, it is historically notable as the earliest complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer.
Jeremy Summerly is a British conductor. He was educated at Lichfield Cathedral School, Winchester College, and New College, Oxford. While at Oxford he conducted the New College Chamber Orchestra and the Oxford Chamber Choir. After graduating with a first-class honours degree in music in 1982, he started work as a studio manager for BBC Radio, while pursuing postgraduate research in historical musicology at King's College London. Since 1991 he has been a presenter and reviewer for BBC's Radios 3 and 4, in particular for Radio 4's Front Row, and Radio 3's Record Review.
Pro Cantione Antiqua of London (PCA) is a British choral group which was founded in 1968 by tenor James Griffett, counter-tenor Paul Esswood, and conductor and producer Mark Brown. Their first concert was at St Bartholomew's, Smithfield with Brian Brockless conducting but, from an early stage, they were closely associated with conductor and musicologist Bruno Turner. Arguably, they were the leading British performers of a cappella music, especially early music, prior to the founding of the Tallis Scholars.
This is a discography of Hildegard of Bingen's musical works.
Ensemble Organum is a group performing early music, co-founded in 1982 by Marcel Pérès and based in France. Its members have changed, but have included at one time or another, Josep Cabré, Josep Benet, Gérard Lesne, Antoine Sicot, Malcolm Bothwell. They have often collaborated with Lycourgos Angelopoulos and are influenced by Orthodox music.
A Feather on the Breath of God is an album of sacred vocal music written in the 12th century by the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen, and recorded by British vocal ensemble Gothic Voices with English soprano Emma Kirkby. It was released by the Hyperion Records label in 1982.
His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts (HMSC) is a British early music group founded in 1982. The ensemble presently consists of three cornetts and four sackbuts, with chamber organ or harpsichord. The group frequently collaborates with other instrumentalists and singers, and has an extensive discography on Hyperion Records and other labels.
Emily Van Evera is an American soprano who specializes in early music and Baroque music in historically informed performance.
The Oxford Camerata is an English chamber choir based in Oxford, England. The Camerata was founded in 1984 by conductor Jeremy Summerly and singers David Hurley and Henrietta Cowling and gave its first performance on 22 May of that year. The ensemble consists of a core membership of fifteen singers, though personnel size varies according to the demands of the repertoire. While the Camerata is known for performing primarily unaccompanied repertoire, it has also performed accompanied repertoire, employing the services of the Oxford Camerata Instrumental Ensemble and the Oxford Camerata Baroque Orchestra.
