Catherine Webster & Jennifer Ellis Kampani, soprano
Meg Bragle & Deborah Rentz-Moore, alto
David Tayler, theorbo
Hanneke van Proosdij, organ
Psallite, superi is a text for the Assumption (August 15); its refrain frames a series of questions whose answers are taken from a standard Song of Songs verse used on the liturgy of that day in Cozzolani's Benedictine breviary. The form of this dialogue also derives from the cantilena motets pioneered in Alessandro Grandi's book of 1619. The scoring (two sopranos, two altos) points directly to the all-women choir of S. Radegonda's nuns, the ensemble which presumably premiered most of Cozzolani's music.
Maria est, humore fecunda cœlitium gratiarum, ut soli Deo placeat; Spiritu Sancto superimpleta, ut terra gratias influat, ut miseris mortalibus depluat.
Quæ est ista, terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata?
Maria est, singularis inimica diaboli; Maria virguncula, tenellula, placidula, metuenda; diabolo invisa, terribilis, formidabilis; expugnatrix, triumphatrix Maria diaboli.
Sing, you above; rejoice, you heavenly ones; sing you angels, rejoice.
Who is this woman, who ascends like the rising dawn?
It is Mary, who took away the night of sin and gave the day of grace; she has given birth to the sun of justice.
Sing, you above; rejoice, you heavenly ones; sing you angels, rejoice.
Who is this woman who ascends, fair like the moon?
It is Mary, filled with the dew of heavenly grace, that she alone might please God; brimming over with the Holy Spirit, that she might bring grace to the earth, that she might succour miserable mortals.
Sing, you above; rejoice, you heavenly ones; sing you angels, rejoice.
Who is this woman, chosen like the sun?
It is Mary, alone free from sin, ignorant of Hell’s night, full of the light of virtue, crowned with the rays of heavenly life.
Sing, you above; rejoice, you heavenly ones; sing you angels, rejoice.
Who is this woman, frightful like a deployed battle-line of military encampments?
It is Mary, the matchless enemy of the devil, Mary the young girl, the tender and pleasing one, the venerable one; hated by the devil, frightful, imposing; the expiator, the conqueror, Mary, the one who triumphed over the devil.
Who is this woman?
It is Mary.
Sing, you above; rejoice, you heavenly ones; sing you angels, rejoice.
credits
from Concerti Sacri (1642),
released April 2, 2013
Peter Watchorn, producer
Joel Gordon, engineer
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