The Lambeth Anonymous: Recordings from the Arundel Choirbook – Iken Scholars

The Arundel Choirbook is one of the most significant surviving collections of English polyphony from the early 16th century. As well as containing invaluable sources for masses by Robert Fayrfax and Nicholas Ludford, it also contains many works by lesser known and anonymous composers of the period.

The Arundel or Lambeth Choirbook is celebrating its 500th anniversary (Arundel College in Sussex was founded in 1380 and dissolved in 1544), and it is fitting that the Iken Scholars have selected a sequence of pieces by anonymous composers (known as the Lambeth Anonymous) that are receiving their world-premiere recordings.

The pieces are a selection of Magnificat settings, settings of Salve regina, Ave Dei patris, Ave mundi spes Maria, Vidi aquam egredientem and Gaude flore virginali. The seven Lambeth Anonymous settings are nestled between mass settings by Ludford and Fayrfax in the choirbook.

This recording was made in the chapel at Lambeth Palace, where the manuscripts have been housed since the early 17th century.