Sub Ursae - Under the Northern Sky

Sub Ursae can be translated as "under the northern sky". This expression comes from a popular sixteenth-century prayer for the Commonwealth and the king, with a melody by Waclaw of Szamotuly (ca. 1520/25-ca. 1560), the most known Polish Renaissance composer and the birst to be published abroad alongside works by the most acclaimed con- temporary European composers. The anthem, calling upon Christ to protect the subjects of Sigismund Augustus, could have been sung in times of war and peace by both Catholics and Protestants, by Poles and Lithuanians, joined in the com- mon praise of the splendour of the happy and prosperous land under the sky of the Great Bear (Ursa Major). The Cracow Singers directed by Basle specialist Agnieszka Budzinska-Bennett and accompanied by Marc Lewon (lute), present the birst ever complete songs of the Renaissance master: Latin motets, Polish monophonic and polyphonic hymns as well asthe premiere reconstruction of recently discovered fragments Waclaw's Lamentationes, long thought to be lost.