Lucrezia Borgia's Daughter: Princess, Nun and Musician: Motets from a 16th century convent

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Their hypnotic polyphony and static harmonies evoke a world of intense spiritual contemplation, and despite fleeting echoes of Josquin…the quirky use of dissonance suggests a composer outside... — BBC Music Magazine, May 2017, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 3rd Mar 2017
Catalogue No: CD717
Label: Obsidian Records
Length: 73 minutes

anon.: Musica quinque vocum (Attrib. to Leonora d'Este)

Work length1:13:11

$19.00

$24.65

$33.25

Musica Secreta, Celestial Sirens
Recorded: 22–26 August 2016
Recording Venue: Bishop Edward King Chapel, Ripon College, Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom

No. 1, Tribulationes civitatum audivimus

Track length5:38

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No. 2, Suscipe verbum Virgo Maria

Track length4:01

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No. 3, Haec dies

Track length5:57

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No. 4, Ego sum panis vitae

Track length5:50

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No. 5, O salutaris hostia

Track length3:03

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No. 6, Veni sponsa Christi

Track length1:44

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No. 7, Salve sponsa Dei

Track length2:06

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No. 8, Hodie Simon Petrus

Track length3:01

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No. 9, Ave sanctissima Maria

Track length2:59

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No. 10, Sicut lilium

Track length1:49

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No. 11, Angelus Domini descendit

Track length12:36

$3.00

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No. 12, Felix namque es sacra

Track length3:58

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No. 13, Angustie mihi sunt undique

Track length3:21

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No. 14, O beate Christi confessor

Track length3:49

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No. 15, Iste est Johannes

Track length7:45

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No. 16, Angeli, archangeli, troni

Track length5:34

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Suor Leonora d’Este (1515–1575), Lucrezia Borgia’s daughter, was a princess, a nun, and a musician. She left little to illuminate her history, but an obscure book of motets may at least help us understand her musical life: the Musica quinque vocum motteta materna lingua vocata, published in Venice in 1543. The book is anonymous, but it contains clues to its origins that lead us to the door of Leonora d’Este’s home, the convent of Corpus Domini in Ferrara, perhaps even suggesting that she was its unidentified composer.

This music is the earliest published polyphony for nuns. This recording by Musica Secreta and Celestial Sirens allows it to be heard for the first time through carefully researched performances.

Reviews

May 2017

Their hypnotic polyphony and static harmonies evoke a world of intense spiritual contemplation, and despite fleeting echoes of Josquin…the quirky use of dissonance suggests a composer outside the musical mainstream…the recorded balance, too, offers different perspectives on these aptly chaste and seraphic performances

10th March 2017

The music – for five equal voices (of unspecified sex) – is astonishingly beautiful and yet strange, radical even...Often they seem closer to the music of our own times’ John Tavener than Palestrina: five voices weaving hypnotically around each other, pulling the listener in.

Lucrezia Borgia's Daughter

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