This ground-breaking programme from Geoffrey Webber’s consistently inventive choir seeks to recreate three distinct sound-worlds: 7th-century hymns from Iona, 10th-century chants from Celtic foundations in Switzerland, and 14th-century Columban antiphons from the Inchcolm libellus.

As well as the evidence of early notation and of drawings and other indications of instrumentation, the performance styles – developed in an exciting extended collaboration with scholar and piper Barnaby Brown – are informed by oral traditions from as far afield as Sardinia and the Outer Hebrides.

The Choir have often specialised in the rediscovery of forgotten choral repertories, including previously unpublished music from within the English choral tradition and beyond, and their five recordings on Delphian reflect this. Among the accolades their previous releases have received, their 2011 recording of music by the leading British composer Judith Weir (Delphian DCD34095) was BBC Music Magazine’s Choral and Song Choice in December 2011.

Track Listing:
1. Os mutorum, lux cecorum
2. Loquebar de testimoniis tuis
3. River Erne horn duet
4. Adiutor laborantium
5. Sanctorum piissime Columba
6. Lauda anima mea Dominum
7. Noli Pater
8. Carne solutus pater Columba
9. Amen dico vobis
10. Liberasti nos Domine
11. Cantemus in omni die
12. Altus prosator
13. Volens Ihesus linire
14. Laudate Dominum (Psalm 150)
15. The Desperate Battle of the Birds


Total playing time: 76:10