Merton College Chapel, 4 Merton St, Oxford OX1 4JD
RUMORUM (Basel, Switzerland) is an ensemble devoted to the study and performance of medieval music. They bring their program The Temple of Glas to Merton Chapel, Oxford: a representative selection of secular English repertory from the 15th Century—Frye, Bedyngham, Dunstaple, and others—which traces the cryptic itinerary of John Lydgate’s famous poem by the same name. The Temple was wide reaching and boundary blurring: Lydgate’s phrases interject surviving song lyrics from the time. The mirrorhall effect delighted readers, but what music resounded in their minds? RUMORUM’s exhibition brings vanguard research into English performance practice, instruments, and texts, to Oxford’s historic space, demonstrating the shared linguistic and formal soundscapes of the courtly imagination.
