Chant grégorien
Ave Maria
Ave Maris Stella
Salve Regina

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
Communio, Regina Mundi

Extrait du Laudario de Cortona (Italie, 2ème partie du 13e siècle)
Ave, donna santissima
Madonna santa Maria
Ave Maria, gratïa plena
Ave, regina glorïosa
O Maria, d'omelia
Regina sovrana de gram pïetade
O Maria, Dei cella

Extrait du Livre vermeil de Montserrat (Catalogne, 16e siècle)
Polorum Regina
Maria Matrem Virginem
Laudemus virginem
Splendens ceptigera
O virgo splendens
Ave maris stella

Josquin des Prés (1440-1521)
Ave Maria

Adrian Willaert (?1490-1562)
Ave Maria

Nicolas Gombert (1490-1556)
Ave Maria a 5 voix
Salve Regina (diversi diversa orant)

Johannes Ockeghem (1420-1496)
Alma Redemptoris Mater

Jacob Obrecht (1450-1505)
Salve regina à 4 voix
Salve regina à 6 voix

Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612)
Ave Maris Stella

Johann Melchior Gletle (1626-1683)
Ave Maria

Pierre de La Rue (?1455-1518)
Salve Regina V

Jacobus Vaet (1529-1567)
Salve Regina

Robert Parsons (1535-1572)
Ave Maria

Peter Philips (1560-1628)
Salve regina
Hodie beata Virgo Maria
Guade Maria virgo
Alma Redemptoris Mater
O Maria Mater

Extraits des manuscrits des Cantigas de Santa María (Espagne, 13e siècle)
Santa Maria loei, e loo e loarei
Virgen Madre groriosa

Alonso Lobo (1555-1617)
Ave Regina Caelorum
Ave Maria
Regina Caeli Laetare

Juan de Anchieta (1462-1523)
Ave sanctissima Maria

Tomás Luis de Victoria (?1548-1611)
Ave Maria
Ave regina coelorum à 8
ave regina coaelorum à 5

Marcos Pérez (?-1662)
Salve regina

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)
Salve Regina à trois choeurs, H 24

Joseph-Hector Fiocco (1703-1741)
Ave Maria

Giovanni Battista Fasolo (1598-1664)
Salve Regina

Claudio Merulo (1533-1604)
Ave Maria
Hodie beata Virgo Maria

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
Ave Maria

Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
Salve Regina -Ave regina caelorum
Alma redemptoris Mater

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Ave maris stella à 8
Salve Regina
Salve Regina, extrait du "Selva morale e spiritual"

Federico Bardazzi (1962-)
Salve Regina del Signor Claudio Monteverdi
Salve Regina Ghirlanda Sacra
Salva Regina, pour 2 ténors

Maurizio Cazzati (1616-1678)
Ave Virgo Maria
Ave maris stella
Ave Regina coelorum
Salve Regina

Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)
O Beata virgo
Salve virgo

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613)
Ave dulcissima Maria

Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1637-1695)
Ad novum caeli iubar, GPC 23

Alessandro Melani (1639-1703)
Salve superum Regina
Alma Redemptoris
Salve Mater et Regina

Francesca Caccini (1587-?1641)
Maria, dolce Maria
Regina Caeli

Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)
Salve Regina
Ave Maris Stella

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Salve Regina, RV 617

Francesco Maria Benedetti (1683-1746)
Salve Regina

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736)
Salve Regina en do mineur

Georg Friedrich Haendel (1685-1759)
Salve Regina, HWV 241

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Salve regina en sol mineur, Hob. XXIIIb:2, pour choeur, cordes et orgue seul
Salve Regina en mi bémol majeur, Hob. XXIIIb:4, pour choeur en 3 parties, cordes et orgue

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Extraits de "Litaniae Lauretanae" en si bémol majeur, K 109

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Salve Regina en si bémol majeur, D 106
Salve Regina en si bémol majeur, D 386
Ave Maria, D 839

Simon Mayr (1763-1845)
Salve Regina en fa majeur, I-BGc 307/2
Ave Regina coelorum en mi bémol majeur, I-BGc 307/10

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Ave Maria, op. 23/2

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848)
Ave Maria

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Ave Maria, op. 12/3
Regina Coeli
Marienlieder, op. 22

Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
Ave Maria

Joseph Guy Ropartz (1864-1955)
Ave Maria à 4 voix

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Ave Maria, extrait de "4 pièces sacrées"

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)
Ave Maria, WAB 6

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Ave maris stella

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
Extraits des "Vêpres", op. 37

Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
"Tota pulchra es, Maria", extrait de "4 Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens", op. 10

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
"Salut, Dame sainte", FP 142
Litanies à la Vierge Noire, FP 82
Salve Regina, FP 110

Arvo Pärt (1935-)
Magnificat

Dominique Vellard, ténor
Hervé Lamy, ténor
Philippe Balloy, baryton
Willem de Waal, baryton
Wendy Roobol, soprano
Paolo Borgonovo, ténor
Arjen Verhage, théorbe
Cassandra Luckhart, viola da gambe
Krijn Koetsveld, orgue, clavecin
CantArte Regensburg
Hubert Velten, direction
Astrarium Consort
Carlo Centemeri, direction
Ensemble Il Pegaso
Maurizio Croci, orgue, direction
Ensemble Eridanus
Paolo Giorgi, direction
Ensemble Seicentonovecento
Flavio Colusso, clavecin, orgue
The Choir of Leeds Cathedral
Thomas Leech, direction
Corydon Singers
Matthew Best, direction
Ensemble Le Nuove Musiche
Krijn Koetsveld, direction
The National Academic Choir of Ukraine ‘Dumka’
Yevhen Savchuk, direction

Au cours des siècles, les chrétiens ont sans cesse cherché le réconfort auprès de Marie, Sainte Mère de Dieu, en invoquant son aide et sa miséricorde. Dans la liturgie catholique, Marie est honorée par plusieurs hymnes ou antiennes. L’Ave Maria, le Salve Regina ou encore l’Ave Maris Stella en sont les plus symboliques. Nombreux sont les compositeurs qui ont mis ces textes en musique, et cette nouvelle édition signée Brilliant Classics rassemble dans l’ordre chronologique une collection impressionnante d’hymnes à la Vierge. Ainsi, sont compilés ici plus de 800 ans de musique; Des chants grégoriens médiévaux aux premières compositions de Guillaume de Machaut, des polyphonistes flamands (Josquin, Ockeghem, Obrecht, Willaert) aux Maîtres italiens de la fin de la Renaissance (Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Cavalli, Gesualdo, Caccini), de la période baroque (Vivaldi, Scarlatti, Pergolesi) à Mozart, des grands romantiques (Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Brahms) jusqu'au 20e siècle avec Poulenc, Duruflé et Arvo Pärt. Les grandes maîtrises vocales du moment (Chœurs du King’s College, Clare College ou St John’s…) servent admirablement ce beau répertoire avec des interprétations puissantes et touchant au divin. Un nouveau recueil de musique sacrée très inspirant de l’éditeur hollandais, infatigable pourvoyeur de riches coffrets bien documentés. A conserver religieusement avec les beaux volumes précédents consacrés aux Requiem (BRIL95104), Stabat Mater (BRIL95370) et autres Magnificat (BRIL95928).

A millennium of Marian motets and antiphons: the most comprehensive collection available of musical prayers to the Virgin. Mary the Blessed Virgin, mother of Christ, has been an object of devotion in music as well as buildings, words and images since the early stirrings of the Christian church in the first and second centuries AD. The music in this box begins with the chants written down by monks during the papacy of Pope Gregory II, and for centuries these supple, joyful chants were passed on from generation to generation of Christians in worship and adoration. With the development of polyphony in the 11th century, these Marian devotions took on further richness. Settings of the Ave Maria and other Marian prayers gradually flower and grow further from the original tree of Gregorian chant. This process is outlined in the box like a piece of slow- motion photography, moving from Guillaume de Machaut through to the Dutch polyphonists of the 15th and 16th centuries such as Ockeghem, Obrecht and Nicolas Gombert, but the vernacular traditions of Marian devotion in Italy and Spain are also represented with excerpts from the Laudario di Cortona and Llibre vermell de Montserrat. The edicts of the Council of Trent in 1566 commanded that sacred music communicate the text clearly above all considerations of aesthetic refinement, and composers across Europe accordingly wrote with greater transparency, less counterpoint and more declamation. Nevertheless, the new style inspired masterpieces such as the Ave Maris Stella of Monteverdi and Gesualdo’s Ave, dulcissima Maria. With instruments increasingly joining voices in sacred music, Marian hymns adopted a concertato style, and the boundaries between the altar and the stage of the new opera houses became increasingly blurred. Settings of prayers such as the Salve Regina settings by Vivaldi and Pergolesi became multi-movement pieces, like a vocal concerto or dance suite, demanding vocal virtuosity from singers practised in soloistic repertoire. Writing in praise of Mary became less of a commission and increasingly driven by personal faith: Haydn wrote his sublime G minor setting of the Salve Regina having promised to dedicate a work to the Virgin after recovering from a serious illness. Many Romantic-era settings of Marian poetry are accordingly infused with a quality of sublimated eroticism, like the Renaissance madrigalists, such as the notable examples by Schubert, Gounod and Brahms. Only in the middle of the 20th century did religiously inclined composers including Durufle and Poulenc return to the chanted origins of prayers such as Tota pulchra es. The collection comes to a radiant, meditative close with the seven Magnificat antiphons by Arvo Pärt, representing the modern revival of religious music in the hands of composers who rebelled against the Modernist revolution. All the performances in the box are modern, digitally recorded versions by acclaimed ensembles such as the Oxford Camerata, the Corydon Singers, Le Concert Spirituel and the Choir of King’s College Cambridge. The booklet includes an essay by Peter Quantrill on the history of Marian devotion in music.