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Moon, Sun & All Things

Baroque Music from Latin America

Ex Cathedra, Jeffrey Skidmore

Moon, Sun & All Things

Awards:

…a heady mix of gloriously rich polyphony and manic, earthy villancicos (popular songs consisting of stanzas framed by a refrain, in Latin America often allied to richly syncopated dances)....

Moon, Sun & All Things

Baroque Music from Latin America

Ex Cathedra, Jeffrey Skidmore

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Awards:

…a heady mix of gloriously rich polyphony and manic, earthy villancicos (popular songs consisting of stanzas framed by a refrain, in Latin America often allied to richly syncopated dances)....

About

Ex Cathedra and Jeffrey Skidmore unearth more fascinating treasures with this latest anthology of Latin American music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first volumeNew World Symphonies, released in 2003 on CDA67380has been hugely popular, getting regular airplay on Classic FM. The works on this disc were chosen from the vast amount of extraordinary repertoire Jeffrey Skidmore discovered on research visits to the USA, Mexico and Bolivia. Hanacpachap cussicuinin is a piece still widely performed throughout Latin America, its steady, processional drumming creating a haunting and seductive atmosphere. It is set for four voices in Sapphic verse in the Quechua language. The colourful imagery of the sequence of prayers skilfully mixes Inca and Christian imagery, with its references to stores of silver and gold, life without end, deceitful jaguars and sins of the devil.

Awards and reviews

  • BBC Music Magazine
    September 2005
    Disc of the month

September 2005

…a heady mix of gloriously rich polyphony and manic, earthy villancicos (popular songs consisting of stanzas framed by a refrain, in Latin America often allied to richly syncopated dances). Skidmore has mined a rich vein of hitherto undiscovered music in libraries and churches of South America, and devised a dramatic Vespers service. The instrumental contribution throughout includes a kaleidoscope of strings, shawm, bagpipes, trumpet, tromba marina and more... Ex Cathedra more exhilaratingly uninhibited than I've heard before.

Skidmore and Ex Cathedra fill this album with some of the most alive, infectious and uplifting Baroque polyphony I’ve ever heard. The evangelical nature of this ‘ancient’ music has survived down the centuries, catching the ear with a force absent from so many compliations of early polyphony. A very special release

Here is a truly wonderful disc, by reason of the splendours of the works chosen and the superbly controlled enthusiasm and skill of the performers … an absolute winner

Truly sublime ... all beautifully played, sung and recorded

This second collection from Jeffrey Skidmore fizzes with excitement and energy and is every bit as engrossing as his first'

A CD bursting with fun and uplifting music. The liturgical items shine with melodic beauty and joy

Daily Telegraph

Ex Cathedra enter into the festive spirit with the infectious enthusiasm for this newly discovered treasure-trove that also pervades their crisp, stylish performances of the more sober pieces

Cathedral Music

The musicians of Ex Cathedra under Jeffrey Skidmore add further lustre to their reputation with some ravishing vocal and instrumental performances which are by turns exuberantly sophisticated and intensely moving in their simplicity. A short review cannot hope to do justice to this wonderful CD. Buy it!
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