PARTITIONS GRATUITES :
- Sarum Plainsong

SKU: ST.EC59

Composed by Various. Library Volumes. Choral Score. Stainer & Bell Ltd. #EC59. Published by Stainer & Bell Ltd. (ST.EC59).

ISBN 9790220224065.

This volume inaugurates a new subseries devoted to plainsong and monophony. The Choir Book provides all the Proper and Ordinary chants at daily and weekly Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Use of Salisbury throughout the year. It forms a pair with EC60. The edition is based principally on the Sarum Gradual printed by Prevost in Paris in 1527, a time when Lady Mass was at its height, and often enriched by polyphony. The new typeface, based on that used by Prevost, is comparable in size to the exemplar. It is therefore ideal for a group singing from a lectern. The volume begins with a substantial account of the Mass of the BVM across the late Middle Ages, setting the Use of Salisbury in a wider historical context.

SKU: ST.EC54

Composed by John Sheppard. Edited by Magnus Williamson. Library Volumes. Edited by Magnus Williamson. First published in 2012. Pages: 304. Format: Hardback. Dimensions (mm): 324 x 247 x 29. Choral Score. Stainer & Bell Ltd. #EC54. Published by Stainer & Bell Ltd. (ST.EC54).

ISBN 9790220222023.

This is an important addition to the pair of consecutive EECM volumes of John Sheppard's Latin compositions for the Use of Salisbury published in the 1970s. Although he had evidently mastered the forms of Mass and votive antiphon, the composer is at his most characteristic in his settings of the plainsong melodies which form the bedrock of the Sarum liturgy. These account for most of the contents of this volume, together with free-composed settings of Biblical texts and a small corpus of devotional polyphony, most of it fragmentary. In general, textural richness is cultivated in preference to long arcs of melisma, and perfect time is favoured over imperfect, creating a directness of expression that seems to typify mid-Tudor polyphony. The format of this volume follows EECM's house style for post-Reformation composers.