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On Demand

Evening Music

Sunday, August 05, 2007
  • St. Peter's Basilica
    St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

    Sacred Pop

    Imagine liturgical texts sung to the melody of "Hips Don't Lie," and you'll have a modern representation of the 15th-century Catholic mass. We hear an example tonight, in Guillaume Dufay's famous mass modeled after his popular love ballad, "Se la face ay pale."

Se la face ay pale

While many early music composers made their living through the church, they found fame with their secular songs. A common practice was to recycle these popular tunes in their sacred output; if the public didn't understand liturgical Latin, they could enjoy the familiar melodies (and it certainly didn't hurt church attendance, either). "Se la face ay pale" translates to "If my face is pale (it's because of love)"; we hear the sacred version tonight from David Munrow and the Early Music Consort of London.

browse recordings of Se la face ay pale at amazon.com
browse recordings from the Early Music Consort of London at amazon
read more about Guillaume Dufay on the web

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