Gregory the Great took a special interest in the English, having seen, when Abbot of a monastery in Rome, some good-looking specimens in the slave-market and been told that in England they were all like that. Little did he know. A tireless punster, he declared that they were angels not Angles, and that their place of origin (which happened to be Yorkshire) being then called Deira signified that they required saving from Divine wrath (“de ira”) and that the name of their King, Aelle, likewise meant that they were born to sing Alleluia. He would have seen to this himself but was too much in demand at Rome. Consecrated Pope in 590, he continued to live a monastic life but also laid the foundations of the Church’s political power, including what in a political context would be regarded as imperialist expansion. This naturally extended to England, whither Augustine of St Andrew’s monastery in Rome was dispatched with 40 monks in 596. They arrived the following spring and were in business in good time for Christmas Day when they baptized 10,000 in the River Swale. Now, 1,400 years later, in multicultural Britain and on CD, the angels rejoice in their memory.
The two saints, and their mission, are celebrated here in a programme of responsories, antiphons and sequences. Some refer specifically to their lives: to Gregory’s miracle of the bread and the finger for example, and Augustine’s early reputation as an athlete. All but one are sung by voices in unison or in octaves, the exception being the responsory O Pastor apostolice, an interesting piece for two voices in organum with extensive melisma on the final “Jhesum Christum”. Interesting and infectious too are the sequences in which rhythm is a strong element and in which the singers allow themselves more freedom of expression. For the most part, the impersonality of the chant imposes its discipline, though in not too chilly a fashion, for these are clearly human voices. They are heard individually as cantors, and we realize what a range and variety of timbres combine to sound together as one in their unison chanting. The fine blend of voices, the naturalness of their tone, their smoothness of line and clarity of articulation contribute greatly to the musical pleasures of the disc and reflect credit on the Cambridge Schola and the work of its Director, Mary Berry. The recordings were made in Rome at the San Gregorio al Celio, which would surely have elicited a quip from the punning Pontiff had he been alive when it was built – built by people, we would say, who were expert in their knowledge of acoustics ideal for the performance of Gregorian chant. '