Filia Praeclara

The main focus of the present CD is the music of the 13th and 14th centuries from Polish convents of the Order of St. Clare. The community based around St. Clare, who was canonized in 1255, was founded as a kind of convent without monastic rules, which followed the instructions of Francis of Assisi and lived in absolute poverty. Thanks to single surviving copies of fragments from the "Magnus Liber," the Ensemble Peregrina subtly brings to life the multilayered spiritual and musical landscapes of these convents. The rarities found on this program are particularly worth mentioning – and listening to. They include the two works "et via regens devium" and the conductus "Omnia beneficia."

We owe this competently compiled and meticulously researched program to Agnieszka Budzinska. She examined fragments from one of the few surviving copies of the "Magnus Liber" that belonged to Kinga of Hungary (1224-1292) and is now located at the Stary Sacz monastery in southern Poland. She reconstructed them for the present ensemble, completing some of them herself. The Magnus Liber is a celebrated work in which musicians of the then outstanding vocal school of Notre Dame in France compiled and wrote down splendid polyphonic music. The program presented on this CD is rounded off by one-part sequences for St. Clare, the patroness of the order bearing her name, and other liturgical hymns from the circle of the sisters of St. Clare.

The following vocal pieces can be discovered on this CD. Clara Dei famula (rondellus) Gaude celi iearchia (sequence, 15th c.) Clara Dei famula (sequence, 15th c.) Surrerxit Christus hodie (14th c.) Alleluia V.O. virgo clarens (13th c.) Ad veniam perveniam (conductus motet 13th c.) Alleluia V. Fulgens luce claritas (14th c.) Omnia beneficia (conductus, 13th c.) Benedicamus Domino I (13th c.) O felix haec novitas (sequence 13th c.) Manere / MANERE (motet, 13th c.) Serena virginis / MANERE (conductus, 13th c.) Alleluia V. Ave benedicta Maria (early 14th c.) Jube domne benedicere (tropieres Lectio, early 14th c.) Ave mater gracie (sequence, 13th c.) ...et via regens devium (Benedicamus hymn, early 14th c.) Thronus novus (sequence, 15th c.) Benedicamus Domino II (13th c.) Surrrexit Christus hodie (Benedicamus hymn, 14th c.)

The successful collaboration of the Ensemble Peregrina and its recording engineer Malgorzata Albinska has contributed to the outstanding audio quality of this production.

The Ensemble Peregrina consists of Agnieska Budzinska-Bennett, Kelly Landerkin, Lorenza Donadini, Els Janssens, Eve Kopli and Veronika Jensovska.