Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

While the cynic might see the Resonances series as being a clever way of recycling material from the back catalogue a more reasonable view would be to see this as a nicely presented and informative introduction to some great music sung by some top performers. Those who have an interest in early music and Gregorian chant will need to check their collection to see how much is duplicated. We get, for example, four tracks from Anonymous 4's best-selling album '1000: Mass For The End Of Time' but if you have not heard this before then this is a great opportunity to get a taste and if you have you won't mind hearing it again. The other artists featured across the two CDs are Marcel Peres's Ensemble Organum, Alfred Deller's Deller Consort and Paul Hillier's Theatre Of Voices which is, it has to be said, an impressive line-up. The material is arranged chronologically with CD1 charting "the early times and the rise of monachism" (which is, I think, a mis-translation for monasticism) and CD2 introducing "The Romanesque era". The illustrated booklet by Caroline Jore-Garrigues gives a good introduction and explains how abbeys were centres of artistic excellence from the time of Saint Ambrose's reign as Bishop of Milan in the fourth century through to the golden age of monasticism in the 12th century. She is particularly helpful in showing how Pope Gregory's use of chant ("Gregorian Chant") to unify the teaching of the Roman Catholic church through worship necessitated the development of musical notation. Ultimately while we can and do applaud the presentation of the CD book and gatefold cover it is the music that will decide whether we recommend this. If you enjoy chant and early polyphony but do not yet have an extensive collection then this is a thoroughly recommended introduction; if you already own some of this material then this could still be a useful compilation, but if the thought of more than two hours of medieval monkish music leaves you cold then best not bother.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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