Bordesholmer Marienklage (ca. 1475)

2 CDs (total times 70:47 and 54:11)

Recorded in April 1992 in the church of St. Pantaleon, Köln (D)

Released 1993 by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Classics (05472772802) in co-production with WDR Köln

Booklet 117 pp.

 

This is the first complete recording of one of late-medieval Germany’s most important Marian lamentation plays, from the northern German church of Bordesholm. Here, Sequentia and the West German Radio worked together over a long period of time to produce both this recording as well as live, staged performances and a television film (broadcast nationwide on Good Friday, 1992). The drama is sung and spoken in Middle Lower German dialect, interspersed with Latin, and includes roles for the Virgin Mary, Saint John, Christ, Maria Magdalena, and the Mother of John. A choir of 12 monks (sung by the men of Sequentia and the Choralschola Essen) and medieval instruments are employed at various points in the drama. This double CD -- which represents the most ideal conditions imaginable for a large-scale collaboration between musicians, scholars and a major cultural institution -- is accompanied by a 118-page booklet containing the complete text of the drama in four languages.