A New York quartet is to perform a form of medieval chant in Halifax this weekend based on a rare manuscript from the 1500s or earlier.

High-born nuns from two different orders are shown in the Salzinnes Antiphonal.
(Adrian Hoffman)

It may be the first time in centuries that anyone has heard these chants, written for nuns at a Cistercian abbey outside Brussels.

Musicologist Jennifer Bain of Dalhousie University has spent the past year transcribing the chant notations from the beautiful illuminated manuscript, called the Salzinnes Antiphonal.

The music was written for women's voices, so soprano Sarah Barrett-Ives, a third-year vocal performance student at Dalhousie, has been helping with interpretation, Bain said.

And this Saturday, Anonymous 4, a U.S. group formed especially to experiment with medieval chant and polyphony written for high voices, will perform the work at St. Mary's Basilica in Halifax as a special presentation of the Scotia Festival of Music.

Anonymous 4 are Marsha Genensky, Jacqueline Horner, Johanna Maria Rose and Susan Hellauer, who got together in 1986 to study and perform this kind of music.

"I'm really excited that they're coming to do this, partly as they have been pioneers as women singing medieval music," Bain told CBC News.

"Most people, when they think of Gregorian chant, they hear in their head men's voices. I think it's really important for people to know that in fact this repertoire also belonged to the thousands … of women who were in convents."

It would have been originally performed by the high-born and well-connected nuns of the Cistercian Abbey, which no longer stands.

The music in the manuscript is in an old form of notation called numes that had to be transcribed for modern singers.
(CBC)

The heavy manuscript, with pictures of individual nuns and music in an old form of notation called neumes, is now owned by St. Mary's University.

It was probably created in the 15th or 16th century for Julienne de Glymes, the prioress and cantrix at the Abbey.

"This particular manuscript, because it is so decorated, it was clearly an important object — a lot of time and effort and money went into producing it. The depiction of the nuns is fascinating and so unusual," Bain said.

It was found in Villa Maria, the Catholic bishop's residence in Halifax, before going to the university.

"It came to Halifax, most likely, in the 19th century, with Bishop William Walsh, who was interested in acquiring devotional objects to bring back to Halifax to distribute to his mission here," Bain said.

Bain discovered through her research that music for at least five of the pieces in the manuscript was previously thought to have been lost.

"I've discovered there is a fair amount of music in that manuscript that is in other manuscripts as well, because it is an antiphonal and an antiphonal is a standard kind of book," she said.

Three of the lost chants are devoted to St. Hubert, who was an early bishop of Liege, near the abbey. They have not been performed anywhere since arriving in Halifax and may not have been performed since the 1500s.

Bain has transcribed the music into modern notation and Anonymous 4 will give their interpretation of the works on Saturday in Halifax.

The concert also includes the Anonymous 4 hit An English Ladymass.