I confess that the subtitle of this CD “From Dramatic Liturgy to Liturgical Drama” made me uneasy. “Right,” I said, “if this begins with the sound of a bell, I’ll scream.” Well it did, and I had to. This is a reconstruction from several sources, both literary and liturgico-musical, of a medieval musical drama relating the death and posthumous influence of St Edmund, the Anglo-Saxon King and martyr. It’s a cross between a liturgical office and a mystery play. Both genres were common throughout the medieval period, and today several fine reconstructions exist on CD (the one of the Passion Play by Ensemble Organum, Harmonia Mundi, 9/91, is particularly memorable). All such reconstructions necessarily share a heavy reliance on conjecture (as the booklet-note acknowledges), but the mixture of the two genres proposed here takes speculation perhaps beyond anything that has been attempted before. That would not in itself be a problem, were it not for the bewildering paradox of Ella de’ Mircovich’s introductory essay. Peripheral issues are explored at excruciating length (biographical, hagiographical, liturgical, socio-historical), but one looks in vain for a comparably detailed explanation of artistic decisions as to scoring, choice of pieces or improvisatory guidelines. The reader may object to my pitching this review on the conceptual level from the very start; but the scholarly tone of the booklet-note invites this, even as its contents left me baffled.
Perhaps it would be better to start afresh, and consider these performances purely as improvisations – inspired, shall we say, by medieval liturgy and plainsong. In keeping with La Reverdie’s previous discs, a plethora of instruments, often very stylishly played, accompanies plainsong and quasi-metrical declamations of Latin and Anglo-Saxon texts. Other tracks constitute free elaborations on plainsong. Throughout, the performance is superbly polished on its own terms, atmospheric and stylish – but beyond the pleasant sounds (of which there are plenty), musical substance is entirely in the ear of the listener. Paradoxically for a disc with such a placid surface, La Reverdie’s latest offering is bound to provoke very strong reactions.'