CCMusic.com

Piae Cantiones (Spiritual Songs), the first Finnish music ever to be printed, was published in Greifswald in 1582. Although many of the texts are on religious themes, the Piae Cantiones songs are not hymns. They represent a varied repertoire sung as extra-curricular entertainment for students. Styles range from the lively dance-rhythms and catchy refrains of "Gaudete" and the cool renaissance counterpoint of "Jesu dulcis memoria" to the austere restraint of chant-like melody in "Angelus emittitur." Andrew Lawrence-King, who has been playing alongside Jordi Savall for decades, conducts the Utopia Chamber Choir in this vivid tribute to Finnish music.