Erotic love and spiritual love sat easily together in the mediaeval mind in a way that they have not done since. Conventional history would explain that the language of mediaeval courtly love suited devotional poetry because courtly love was love from afar, never to be attained or consummated, having its origins in the feelings of young squires for the castle chatelaine whose lord was away fighting the crusades, perhaps. Later, a wedge was driven between romance and religion, firstly by the Protestant reformation of the 16th century, which sharply demoted the female principle in Christianity, banishing the mystical, magical, sensual, ritual, decorative and emotional aspects of faith; and secondly by scientific rationalism.

Today of course, Darwinism and neurochemistry tell us, rather unsentimentally, that romantic love is associated with the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, and is part of a strategy evolved to ensure strong pair-bonding between the parents of the vulnerable human infant, while religious experience may be related to the hormone dimethyltriptamine, and the stimulation of the right temporal lobe of the brain.Yet for all that, could it be that the mediaevals, rather than being merely foolish and unreflective, were simply rather more honest than we are, in acknowledging the overlap between different types of love and beauty, sacred and secular, which in our modern prudery we feel embarrassed about? Many a new mother must have been surprised to discover that the strongest and purest love of all, of a mother for her child, can feel like a romantic, even erotic attachment.

This album then, celebrates a melting away of customary boundaries, a glorious mediaeval mixture and muddle, if muddle it be, between the sacred and the profane, the worldly and the spiritual, as expressed in 700 years of English music. Here are religious songs which were really popular ballads, probably never sung in any church [tracks 1, 3, 20] or which present spirituality in terms either of romantic love [tracks 9, 11] or of loving human relationships [tracks 3, 5, 10]. Alongside these we have put songs which, conversely, present romantic love in spiritual terms, in the language of faithful vow and pilgrimage [tracks 4, 13, 14, 16, 17] or which stand in the courtly love tradition of devotion to an unattainably high object [tracks 4, 8, 19]. As so often in English music, the imagery of nature is a thread running through all, even in religious music, where we would not particularly expect it [tracks 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 13, 15, 18, 19]. So we have included three songs which simply celebrate nature and the English village scene; a mediaeval song in praise of ivy [6], a song describing a morris dancing contest [19], and a classic English folksong of young love in a rural setting [15]. As befits our theme, we have not kept to a strict historical order, and the mediaeval lyrics are (in the case of the Holst settings) rendered into modern English or (in the case of the original mediaeval settings) tweaked here and there so that the listener should catch as much as possible without too much recourse to the lyric sheet.

1. Man may longe lives ween (anon 13th century)
2. I sing of a maiden that matchless is (Gustav Holst)
3. Edi be thu (anon 13th century)
4. Now would I fain summer this make (anon 15th century)
5. My soul has nought but fire and ice (Gustav Holst)
6. Ivy is good (anon 15th century)
7. Down by the salley gardens (trad)
8. Fowles in the frith bird on a briar (anon 13th century)
9. Jesu sweet now will I sing (Gustav Holst)
10. Stand well mother under rood (anon 13th to 14th century)
11. My leman is so true (Gustav Holst)
12. Ah Robin (William Cornish c1520)
13. How should I your true love know Walsingham (anon 16th century)
14. Wounded I am Yet of us twain (William Byrd 1589)
15. As I walked through the meadow (trad)
16. Madame damours (anon c1520)
17. Cavalilly man (anon 17th century)
18. Lo country sports (Thomas Weelkes 1597)
19. Silent worship (GF Handel A Somervell)
20. Dives and Lazarus (trad)
21. Deprecamur te domine (anon Anglo Saxon)

Listen to: the entire album.

Release date: 12/21/2011
English Ayres lives in Guildford England

Tagged as: Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Medieval Romance, Classical Singing, Composer: William Byrd, Composer: George Frideric Handel, Lute

1. The Melodious Birde - Keyboard Music By William Byrd by Colin Booth: solo harpsichord music
2. Mesangeau's Experiments by Alex McCartney: Reflective, historically-informed performance on the lute
3. Honey From The Thorn by Tim Rayborn: Medieval and Middle Eastern music
4. Litha by Skarazula: medieval European, Turkish and Arabic music
5. Arpeggi by Federico Moscogiuri: Original and evocative lute music
6. Guitarscapes by Jeff Wahl: acoustic new age and jazz guitar.
7. Trad by Barry Phillips: Scandinavian folkish cello
8. The Four Seasons by Vivaldi by American Baroque: Spectacular Baroque and Classical chamber music
9. Old School Old Time by Fiddle Whamdiddle: foot-stomping, heart-pumping, head-bobbing music that snags audiences and reels them in!
10. A Spagna in the Works by Alison Crum and Roy Marks: Ethereal, enigmatic and exhilarating renaissance miniature masterpieces for viol and lute
11. Louis Couperin Harpsichord Music by Colin Booth: solo harpsichord music
12. The Water is Wide by David Modica: layers of lush acoustic guitar
13. CD2-JS Bach-Six Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord by Ingrid Matthews and Byron Schenkman: baroque violin & harpsichord
14. Soulful Filling by General Fuzz: atmospheric downtempo
15. First Album by Thursday Group: melodic composed progressive Jazz
16. Inner by Curl: Groovy, French downtempo electro-rock songs
17. Nun Komm by The Bach Players: baroque instrumental and vocal gems
18. JS Bach (Inventions and Sinfonias) by Kathleen McIntosh: delicious harpsichord rarities
19. Every One a Chaconne by The Bach Players: baroque instrumental and vocal gems
20. Bach arranging and arranged by The Bach Players: baroque instrumental and vocal gems

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