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Graduel d'Alienor de Bretagne on CD

Eleanor was born in England in 1275 to Beatrix of England and John II, Duke of Brittany. In 1283, at the age of eight, she entered Amesbury Priory, and in 1304 she became Abbess of Fontevraud, where she died in 1342. A Gradual bearing her coat of arms is now kept in Limoges public library; it is a richly illuminated manuscript, which can be dated to the second half of the thirteenth century. In addition to a Gregorian Mass, it contains a whole repertory of Propers: Sequences, proses, lessons and three two-voice polyphonic pieces that are wholly representative of an oral style. This entirely a cappella music, captivating and bewitching, is a discovery not to be missed.