John Dunstaple - Musician to the Plantagenets

John Dunstaple
Musician to the Plantagenets
Orlando Consort
Metronome 1009

Contents:

  1. Antiphon: Descendi in ortum meum (à 4)
  2. Hymn: Ave maris stella (à 3)
  3. Gloria (canon à 5)
  4. Antiphon: Speciosa facta es (à 3)
  5. Antiphon: Sub tuam protectionem (à 3)
  6. Isorhythmic motet: Veni Sancte Spiritus (à 4)
  7. Isorhythmic motet: Albanus roseo rutilat (à 3)
  8. Isorhythmic motet: Specialis Virgo (à 3)
  9. Isorhythmic motet: Preco preheminencie (à 4)
  10. Antiphon: O crux gloriosa (à 3)
  11. Antiphon: Salve Regina, Mater mire (à 3)

    12. Missa Rex seculorum (à 3)
  12. Gloria
  13. Credo
  14. Sanctus
  15. Agnus dei

Performers: Robert Harre Jones (countertenor), Charles Daniels (tenor), Angus Smith (tenor), Don Grieg (bass), Simon Berridge (tenor), Steven Harrold (tenor)

Playing time: 74'

Recording date: February 1995

According to more recent scholarship, the spelling "Dunstaple" is more likely to be the composer's own; however one still finds "Dunstable" in most modern sources.

The Missa Rex seculorum, as opposed to later English practice, also included a Kyrie movement which only partially survives. It is presently unknown whether this mass is actually by Dunstable or by Leonel Power. Either way, English composers were the first to begin writing cantus firmus masses.

Other recordings devoted specifically to Dunstaple:

Dunstable: Motets
Hilliard Ensemble - Paul Hillier
Virgin Edition 61342
Cathedral Sounds - Dunstable
Sacred music of the late English Gothic
Clemencic Consort - René Clemencic
Arte Nova 34055
Sweet Harmony
Dunstaple: Masses and Motets
Tonus Peregrinus - Antony Pitts
Naxos 8.557341

A recording devoted to the following generation of English mass composition, which briefly continued to be influential on the Continent:

The Spirits of England and France - IV
Missa Caput / Story of the Salve Regina
Gothic Voices - Christopher Page
Hyperion 66857

A more general recital from this era by the present ensemble:

The Call of the Phoenix
Rare 15th-century English Church music
Orlando Consort
Harmonia Mundi USA 907297

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Todd M. McComb