Fragmentum
In search of the lost sound
When the Reformation was introduced in the 16th century and many monasteries were dissolved, their chant manuscripts were also doomed. The codices, which had been produced over centuries with the greatest artistic effort, were now regarded as witnesses to an outdated liturgy. The "papist books," as they were now called, had only material value.
The valuable parchment on which the chants were notated could be recycled as sturdy binding material for files. Thus, thousands of chant manuscripts were cut up and henceforth served as a "dress of notes" for book covers and to reinforce book spines. For centuries they were stored as fragments in dusty archives.
In a lavish production by SWR, these sleeping treasures were brought back to life with the ensemble Ordo Virtutum under the direction of Stefan Johannes Morent. Each page, each cut strip tells its own exciting story, leading back to the time when the liturgy was sung from them in the monasteries.
FRAGMENTUM takes the listener on a journey through time and, after extensive reconstruction work, breathes its lost sound back into the witnesses that have been silenced for centuries for the first time.
Program:
Chants of liturgical-musical fragments from the former monastery churches of Bebenhausen, Hirsau, Maulbronn, Salem and Alpirsbach.
6 singers
Medium to large church rooms
Performances
- Romanischer Sommer Cologne (2017)
- Oude Muziek Utrecht (2017)
- Maulbronn Monastery Concerts (2017)
- Via Mediaeval, Speyer (2017)