Search - Cambridge Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Magnus Williamson :: Chorus vel Organa

Great Britains modern Houses of Parliament conceal a lost royal foundation: the chapel of St Stephen, begun by Edward I and raised into a college by his grandson Edward III. The foundation maintained an outstanding musical tradition for almost exactly two hundred years before the college was dissolved in 1548, when the building became the first permanent meeting-place of the House of Commons. This recording reflects the musical life of the college in its final years under Henry VIII, and reconstructs both the wide range of singing practices in the great chapels and cathedrals and the hitherto largely unexplored place of organ music in the pre-Reformation period. The repertoire of music chosen reflects the chapels dedication to St Stephen, and the disc also features three items from the Caius Choirbook a handsomely illuminated manuscript, once owned by a canon at St Stephens, which now resides in Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.