Earthly Solace - Eton Choirbook Reconstructions II

I'm delighted to be bringing this second part of our Eton Choirbook recording project into the world, to follow the first instalment, Heavenly Light. The second album moves away from the work of Wylkynson and consists of pieces by seven other composers, five in reconstructions by Russell Blacker, and two-Banester's O Maria et Elizabeth and Browne's Stabat iuxta Christi crucem-which are preserved complete in the manuscript. It is these two pieces which frame the album and inspired it's title, Earthly Solace-in contrast to the purely celestial focus of the rest of the texts, they both have a very direct relation to events happening in the English royal family at the time of their composition, and bookend specifically the life of Arthur, ill-fated elder brother of the future Henry VIII. © Daniel Gilchrist