La Magdalene: The cult of Mary Magdalene in the early 16th century

".. The beautifully balanced, positively projected 11 voices of Graindelavoix lavish on the Franco-Flemish Champion's Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena - an ingenious and rich-textured commentary on Lefèvre's treatise, based on seven plainchant antiphons - some stunning decoration This bold approach, justified by careful reading of contemporaneous sources, gives the music a singularly dramatic lift." Sunday Times, 28th June 2009 ****

Recorded at Saint-Pauluskerk,Antwerp December 2008.

In early 16th-century Catholic Europe the figure of Mary Magdalene was the subject of intense veneration and composers of sacred choral music, and of chansons, were heavily involved in celebrating the saint. Hoever, it appears that the figure of Mary Magdalene then celebrated represented three different women, and following the writing of a controversial treatise by Jacques Lefèvre d'Estaples, the Liège-born musician Nicolas Champion (c.1475-1533) composed a beautiful Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena incorporating a number of different cantus firmi and, apparently, reflecting Lefèvre's thesis. Björn Schmelzer of Graindelavoix has ventured into the complex web here of historical texts, concerned with religion and art history as much as with music, in order to bring forth a wholly compelling performance of the mass (persuasively embellished), related chansons and Parisian plainchant. Although little-known today, Nicolas Champion was a contemporary of composers such as Josquin Desprez, Pierre de la Rue and Alexander Agricola and this recording marks a significant step forward in his modern-day recognition.