Three Gregorian Fantasies

OMP119 Lance Eccles, Three Greogrian Fantasies.

Lance Eccles was born in 1944. He is a senior lecturer in Chinese at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. From 1982 to 2002, he was a member of the R eluctant Consort. Nearly all of his recorder compositions and arrangements were written either for that group or for meetings of the Sydney Society of Recorder Players. Besides his musical compositions, he has published books ion the Shanghai dialect of China, on the Coptic language of ancient Egypt, on the Tetum language of East Timor, and a grammatical commentary on the Syriac version of the Gospel of Mark.

The chants on which these pieces are based are Kyrie Eleison, Asperges me and Veni Sancte Spiritus. Quoting an e-mail from Eccles: "The Kyrie Eleison is from the Gregorian Mass setting known as Orbis Factor. The tune dates from the 10th century, but was adjusted a few centuries later. In this I've basically followed the rhythm of the original as I developed the theme. Asperges me ("Sprinkle me with hyssop") is a chant sung at the beginning of High Mass as the priest sprinkles the congregation with holy water

Life recording from a concert, performed by Flauto Vivo (Hamburg, Germany), conducted by Hartmut Stanszus in July 2009.

No. 1  Kyrie Eleison          

No. 2 Asperges me           

No. 3 Veni Sancte Spiritus 

Orpheus Music would like to thank Flauto Vivo for generously sharing their recordings with us.