FINGERGULL - In festo susceptionis sanguinis Domini - Schola Sanctae Sunnivae, Anne Kleivset

«Blóð várs herra Jesv Christi kom til Niðar ós» (The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ came to Nidaros). With these words the Icelandic Annales regii for 1165 record the arrival of a drop of Christ's blood in Nidaros, today's Trondheim, in Norway. What had arrived was a precious relic, and, if the information given in the Icelandic annals about the arrival of a holy blood relic to Nidaros is correct, then it was in fact one of the first places to receive such a prominent relic. Today the Nidaros holy blood relic has disappeared, and many regard the medieval cult of relics as repellent, heathen and, indeed, utterly fanciful. However, if we choose to focus on the main idea lying behind the cult of the holy blood – namely the theme of the redemption of mankind flowing from a substance that descends from the divine – we might perhaps understand the cult's long-standing attraction. This attraction is still operative: who amongst us enlightened contemporaries has not been fascinated by books and films like The Da Vinci Code or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which are really just remakes of a tradition traceable through Richard Wagner's Lohengrin or Parsifal back to Chrétien de Troyes's 12th century grail stories and the medieval legends about Mary Magdalene? Schola Sanctae Sunnivae and conductor Anne Kleivset have worked on this material for many years, and they give here the first complete recording of the "Holy Blood office".

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