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A St Ceclia’s Day recital of early music and readings, presented by Cantores Coutance with Jenny Kendal Tobias and guest cantor Luke O’Donnell, at Notre Dame Church on Friday 22 November, 6 pm.
Many will be aware of St Cecilia as the patron saint of music whose day is celebrated each November.
However the story of life, as a pious woman whose commitment to her faith is told in a colorful way by Henry Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales, is less well known today.
A Roman Christian virgin martyr, she became the patroness of music and musicians, it being written that, as the musicians played at her wedding, Cecilia "sang in her heart to the Lord.
"The legend of St Cæcelia is translated into Old English by both Ælfric and Chaucer and it is this version of her life and eventual martyrdom which is represented in this recital. In honor of her feast day, Cantores Coutance has built a concert performance around the responses from her Nocturn according to the use of York (as preserved in a late 14th C Breviary now housed at Lambeth Palace), embellished with 15th C polyphony, and extracts from the Second Nun’s Tale (Canterbury Tales).
Cantores Coutance is a three-voice ensemble performing secular and sacred music written before 1568 when, at the command of Elizabeth I, Guernsey passed from the Diocese of Coutance to the Diocese of Winchester.
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