Officium (album)

Officium
Live album by Jan Garbarek & the Hilliard Ensemble
Released	September 1994 [1]
Recorded	September 1993
Venue	Propstei St. Gerold Austria
Genre	Jazz, Gregorian chant
Length	77:34
Label	ECM New Series ECM 1525
Producer	Manfred Eicher
Jan Garbarek chronology
Madar (1994) Officium (1994) Visible World (1996)

Officium is an album by Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and British male vocal quartet Hilliard Ensemble recorded at the monastery of Propstei St. Gerold in Austria in September 1993 and released on ECM the following year.

Background

The artists had been brought together by the producer Manfred Eicher. Their musical collaboration is based on 12th- to 16th-century liturgical works by composers including Cristóbal de Morales and Perotinus Magnus. ^[2] It became one of the most successful releases on the ECM label, achieving sales of more than 1.5 million. ^[3] Following a number of successful concert tours, a series of collaborative albums was released: Mnemosyne (1999), Officium Novum (2010) and Remember me, my dear (2019). ^[4]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings	[6]

AllMusic awards the album with 3½ stars and Richard S. Ginell's review says: "Recorded in a heavily reverberant Austrian monastery, the voices sometimes develop in overwhelming waves, and Garbarek rides their crest, his soprano saxophone soaring in the monastery acoustic, or he underscores the voices almost unobtrusively, echoing the voices, finding ample room to move around the modal harmonies yet applying his sound sparingly." ^[5]

Marius Gabriel remarked that Officium is "what Coltrane hears in heaven". ^[7]

Track listing

1. "Parce mihi domine" (from the Officium Defunctorum by Cristóbal de Morales) – 6:42
2. "Primo tempore" (Anonymous) – 8:03
3. "Sanctus" (Anonymous) – 4:44
4. "Regnantem Sempiterna" (Anonymous) – 5:36
5. "O Salutaris Hostia" (Pierre de la Rue) – 4:34
6. "Procedentem sponsum" (Anonymous) – 2:50
7. "Pulcherrima rosa" (Anonymous) – 6:55
8. "Parce mihi domine" (de Morales) – 5:35
9. "Beata viscera" (Magister Perotinus) – 6:34
10. "De spineto nata rosa" (Anonymous) – 2:30
11. "Credo" (Anonymous) – 2:06
12. "Ave maris stella" (Guillaume Du Fay) – 4:14
13. "Virgo flagellatur" (Anonymous) – 5:19
14. "Oratio Ieremiae" (Anonymous) – 5:00
15. "Parce mihi domine" (de Morales) – 6:52

Personnel

Musicians

• Jan Garbarek – soprano and tenor saxophones
• Hilliard Ensemble
  • David James – countertenor
  • Rogers Covey-Crump – tenor
  • John Potter – tenor
  • Gordon Jones – baritone

Technical personnel

• Peter Laenger – tonmeister

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Netherlands (NVPI) [8]	Gold	50,000^
Norway (IFPI Norway) [9]	Gold	25,000*
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland) [10]	Gold	25,000^
United Kingdom (BPI) [11]	Gold	100,000^
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

1. "Officium". ECM .
2. Stewart, Zan (4 November 1994). "Carving Out a Place for Hybrid Music : Jazz: 'Officium's' mix of a capella vocals and saxman Jan Garbarek has become an unexpected top seller. The music is hard to categorize, even for the artists themselves". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
3. In Conversation With Jan Garbarek, jazz.com Archived 22 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine
4. "Information on new CD Officium Novum". Archived from the original on 29 April 2010. Retrieved 14 March 2010.
5. Ginell, R. S.Allmusic Review: Officium accessed 11 March 2010
6. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 525. ISBN   978-0-141-03401-0.
7. What Coltrane hears in heaven by Marius Gabriel
8. "Dutch album certifications – Jan Garbarek – Officium" (in Dutch). Nederlandse Vereniging van Producenten en Importeurs van beeld- en geluidsdragers . Retrieved 1 March 2020.Enter Officium in the "Artiest of titel" box. Select 1999 in the drop-down menu saying "Alle jaargangen".
9. "IFPI Norsk platebransje Trofeer 1993–2011" (in Norwegian). IFPI Norway. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
10. "The Official Swiss Charts and Music Community: Awards ('Officium')". IFPI Switzerland. Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
11. "British album certifications – Jan Garbarek – Officium". British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 1 March 2020.