Miracles Of Compostela: Anonymous 4

Anonymous 4 has always programmed well. In live concerts they often combine plainchant, polyphony and text readings into a unified evening. Their CDs follow in this trend. MIRACLES OF SANT'IAGO is a compilation of music written for St. James and appearing in the Codex Calixtinus. These four women bring an intimacy to the music that does not appear in all recordings of early music. The voices are not as powerful as the Hilliard Ensemble, for example, but they are far more personal.
Furthermore, by cultivating the natural resonance of their performance space, Anonymous 4 teaches us an amazing music history lesson. In the plainchant, when the pitches change, the echo creates a bleed effect where pitches begin to stack on top on one another. Suddenly there is a moment of polyphony, and this may very well have been the same sound that led composers to begin experimenting with polyphonic music such as organum and conductus.
As with much of the music from the Medieval era, we do not know the composers of these works. But there is no doubt that this music, as sung by these performers, deserves to be known.