Rhenish Hymns of Praise to the Virgin from ca. 1500 - Lobgesänge auf Maria um 1500 aus dem Rheinland

To the present day, the Rhenish Madonnas of the thirteen and fourteenth centuries captivate the beholder with their blissfully smiling facial expressions. Reflected in them are the triumph over anguish and death and the attainment of eternal grace. This fundamental Christian experience, captured by medieval sculptors, is also to be found in the enchanting sound of the Marian hymns. Ars Choralis Coeln and Maria Jonas’s music-historical Rhine journey leads from the area around Cologne to other centers of the cult of the Virgin Mary on the Upper Rhine as well as to the Netherlands. Particularly fortuitous for this CD has proven to be the consideration of the manuscript MS Berlin 190, which, with its trove of Netherlandish and Latin songs, provided insight into the extremely diverse music and poetry of a Devotia Moderna convent around 1500.

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Live at montalbâne 17.6.2011