For their tenth recording and their first of the new millennium, Anonymous 4 have decided to go apocalyptic. Not that it shows in the customary purity and calmness of their chanting, but for this CD they have taken as their theme the Last Judgment as evoked in a liturgical reconstruction of a Mass for Ascension Day from about the year 1000. The fears of what would happen at the end of the first millennium were genuine and widespread: Mankind would be judged and found wanting, Satan would appear and reap destruction. The apocalyptic visions of St John the Divine are echoed in the processional hymn with which Anonymous 4 begin their recording, Judicii signum, but otherwise the troped chants of the Proper and Ordinary of the Mass focus on Christ’s Ascension, and refer to his coming to judge the quick and the dead in the more straightforward language of the liturgy.
Much of the music on this CD comes from manuscripts of chant and early polyphony from around 1000, mostly from the abbey of St Martial in Limoges, but with two pieces from the Winchester Troper. A lot of the chant, then, is Aquitanian in origin, and it can sound quite different to the now more familiar Gregorian tradition, with melodies that have a sweep and range not commonly encountered there. Indeed, Anonymous 4 make the most of these steeper melodic curves, notably in the troped Offertory Elevatus est rex fortis/Viri galilei, which gives them something to get their teeth into; elsewhere the chanting can sound a little tentative or even become rather static. Generally, though, the flow is good, and the different ways of embellishing the chant are convincingly done and provide welcome contrast. The embellishments range from the addition of other vocal lines which move in parallel or contrary motion to the chant, or simply serve as a sustained drone (a kind of harmonic trope of the melody), to the introduction of various types of ornament: repeated notes, simple turns, or Eastern-sounding slides. These are used sparingly and are executed with great precision. The insert-notes make commendably clear which pieces have been elaborated polyphonically by the group, so alerting the listener to this further element of reconstruction. Leading chant scholars have been consulted about certain aspects of interpretation, and the recording as a whole is as exemplary in its thoughtful presentation as in the scrupulous performances offered by Anonymous 4. If at times I find their singing over-careful and unspontaneous, their fans will not be disappointed by this, the latest impressive contribution to little-known corners of the very early musical repertory by the ‘fab four of medieval music’ as The New Yorker has described them.'