Officium (album)

Officium is an album by Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek and British male vocal quartet Hilliard Ensemble recorded at the monastery of Propstei St. Gerold in Austria in September 1993 and released on ECM the following year.

Officium
Live album by
Jan Garbarek & the Hilliard Ensemble
ReleasedSeptember 1994[1]
RecordedSeptember 1993
VenuePropstei St. Gerold
Austria
GenreJazz, Gregorian chant
Length77:34
LabelECM New Series
ECM 1525
ProducerManfred Eicher
Jan Garbarek chronology
Madar
(1994)		 Officium
(1994)		 Visible World
(1996)

Background

Brought together by producer Manfred Eicher, this collaboration—based on 12th- to 16th-century liturgical works by composers including Cristóbal de Morales and Perotinus Magnus[2]—has become one of the most successful releases on the ECM label, achieving sales of more than 1.5 million.[3] Following a number of successful concert tours, a second collaborative album, Mnemosyne, was released in 1999 followed by Officium Novum (2010) and Remember me, my dear (2019).[4]

Reception
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[6]

AllMusic awards the album with 3½ stars and Richard S. Ginell's review says: "Recorded in a heavily reverberant Austrian monastery, the voices sometimes develop in overwhelming waves, and Garbarek rides their crest, his soprano saxophone soaring in the monastery acoustic, or he underscores the voices almost unobtrusively, echoing the voices, finding ample room to move around the modal harmonies yet applying his sound sparingly."[5]

Marius Gabriel remarked that Officium is "what Coltrane hears in heaven".[7]

Track listing
  1. "Parce mihi domine" (from the Officium Defunctorum by Cristóbal de Morales) – 6:42
  2. "Primo tempore" (Anonymous) – 8:03
  3. "Sanctus" (Anonymous) – 4:44
  4. "Regnanten Sempiterna" (Anonymous) – 5:36
  5. "O Salutaris Hostia" (Pierre de la Rue) – 4:34
  6. "Procedentem sponsum" (Anonymous) – 2:50
  7. "Pulcherrima rosa" (Anonymous) – 6:55
  8. "Parce mihi domine" (de Morales) – 5:35
  9. "Beata viscera" (Magister Perotinus) – 6:34
  10. "De spineto nata rosa" (Anonymous) – 2:30
  11. "Credo" (Anonymous) – 2:06
  12. "Ave maris stella" (Guillaume Du Fay) – 4:14
  13. "Virgo flagellatur" (Anonymous) – 5:19
  14. "Oratio Ieremiae" (Anonymous) – 5:00
  15. "Parce mihi domine" (de Morales) – 6:52

Personnel

Musicians

Technical personnel

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Netherlands (NVPI)[8] Gold 50,000^
Norway (IFPI Norway)[9] Gold 25,000*
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[10] Gold 25,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[11] Gold 100,000^

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References
  1. "Officium". ECM.
  2. Stewart, Zan (4 November 1994). "Carving Out a Place for Hybrid Music : Jazz: 'Officium's' mix of a capella vocals and saxman Jan Garbarek has become an unexpected top seller. The music is hard to categorize, even for the artists themselves". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  3. In Conversation With Jan Garbarek, jazz.com Archived 22 January 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Information on new CD Officium Novum
  5. Ginell, R. S.Allmusic Review: Officium accessed 11 March 2010
  6. Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 525. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  7. What Coltrane hears in heaven by Marius Gabriel
  8. "Dutch album certifications – Jan Garbarek – Officium" (in Dutch). Nederlandse Vereniging van Producenten en Importeurs van beeld- en geluidsdragers. Retrieved 1 March 2020. Enter Officium in the "Artiest of titel" box. Select 1999 in the drop-down menu saying "Alle jaargangen".
  9. "IFPI Norsk platebransje Trofeer 1993–2011" (in Norwegian). IFPI Norway. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
  10. "The Official Swiss Charts and Music Community: Awards ('Officium')". IFPI Switzerland. Hung Medien. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
  11. "British album certifications – Jan Garbarek – Officium". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
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