Search - Anonymous 4, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer :: On Yoolis Night: Medieval Carols & Motets

An antidote to the usual holiday dreck

Evan Hansen | Minneapolis, MN USA | 01/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For all those like me who, by December 23rd, are ready to have a full-blown screaming fit if they have to endure yet one more hackneyed round of "O Holy Night," O, Little Town of Bethlehem," "The Holly and the Ivy," "Hark the Herald Angels," or "Little Drummer Boy," this beautiful record is your soothing antidote. These haunting melodies--sung as if by angels and recorded beautifully--will transport you inside the stone walls of an abbey in medieval Europe, where Christmas music is solemnly devotional--not tacky, commercial, overdone muzak. "On Yoolis Night" made me want to pray and meditate in peace, revering the birth of the Messiah. Which is a whole lot nicer than wanting to throw that full-blown screaming fit. Highly recommended."

The Spirit of Joy and Peace

Leslie Richford | Selsingen, Lower Saxony | 04/29/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"On Yoolis Night. Medieval Carols and Motets. Performed by Anonymous 4 (Ruth Cunningham, Martha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, Johanna Rose). Recorded in November, 1992, at the Campion Center, Boston, Massachussetts. Harmonia Mundi HMU 907099. Total time: 68'03".



Record companies who dare to publish CDs with medieval music are often glad if they can manage to sell a few hundred copies; this CD, the second by Anonymous 4, stormed to the top of the Billboard charts when it first appeared in 1993. And not because it compromised or attempted any kind of "crossover", but simply because both the music and the performance (four delightfully pure, unaccompanied, vibrato-less female voices: three sopranos and one alto) are so beautiful that even the uninitiated can catch something of the spirit of joy and peace that this disk captures so eminently well. Yes, there are seven pieces of Gregorian-type chant here, and chant was "in" during the early 90's, but my feeling is that it was probably the polyphonic motets and carols that made this recording an early music hit. The sound is difficult to describe; the only comparison that comes to mind is the swirling, many-voiced and often extremely beautiful, but also highly volatile, effect of "singing in the spirit" or "sung glossalalia" in some well-ordered charismatic and pentecostal churches where one can, on occasion, feel translated into heavenly regions. Much the same can be said of this disk, which, as one might imagine, contains exclusively Christian material from what are generally known as the "Dark Ages" from the 5th to the 15th centuries A. D. Well, judging purely by the music presented here, those ages were, perhaps, not so dark as we moderns sometimes imagine. And the Christmas texts sung here so deliciously by Anonymous 4 are, surprisingly, much less Mary-orientated and much more directed towards Jesus than those on, for example, "An English Ladymass" (the group's first CD), thus being a lot less offensive to my evangelical sensibilities and providing well over an hour of rapt listening, and that not only at Christmas time. Absolute five-star plus rating!"