TREFOIL

• Christo è nato

"A very pleasing collection of Medieval songs for celebrating the nativity...this new program is an excellent addition to the catalog. I enjoyed hearing the three members of Trefoil - all veterans of the early music scene."

AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE [NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005]

"Trefoil not only sings the music with accuracy but also colors and inflects it with meaning that takes it out of pure abstraction. . . . In nearly every piece, you marveled at how many singular musicians stood before you." [From joint performance with the Renaissance band Piffaro]

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER [OCTOBER 2004]

The small repertoire of surviving medieval Italian praise songs, or laude , was first brought to modern attention in the late 19th century by the German scholar Friedrich Ludwig. Ludwig and Guido Adler both published selections from a beautifully copied collection of these songs, the Florentine Laudario. This collection and the Cortona Laudario are the only two large collections of laude that survive complete with their musical notation. This recording features selections from these vocal editions. To complement the laude, several instrumental works from late 14th and early 15th century polyphony, and from the Faenza codex, have been featured as well.

TREFOIL is a trio of singer-instrumentalists long active in early music, with experience in such ensembles as Concert Royal, Les Arts Florissants, New York's Ensemble for Early Music, Pomerium, Clarion Music Society, Piffaro, My Lord Chamberlain's Consort, and other groups. The trio debuted in New York and Philadelphia early in 2000 with a program of 14th century French ars subtilior song. Trefoil has appeared in concerts and master classes at The Cloisters, Temple University, Vassar College, Middlebury College, Vermont Millennium Arts Festival, Museum Series of Providence, Boston College, Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH, Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, 2002 Amherst Early Music Festival, and 37th Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo. The trio has also made a series of joint appearances with the Folger Concert in Washington D.C. Gloria in excelsis
Ortorum virentium / Virga yesse
Da ciel venne messo novella
Aquila altera
Regina pretiosa
Sovrana si ne sembianti
Ave maris stella
Sanctus
Stella nova
Christo e nato
Ave stella matutina
Puer natus in Bethlehem
Co la madre del beato
Nova stella apparita
Gloria in excelsis



MSR Classics