Yule is the 4th release at NativeDSD from the Grammy nominated Trio Mediæval vocal ensemble. It is available at NativeDSD in Stereo and 5.1 Channel Surround Sound DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64 and DXD plus Stereo DSD 512 and 7.1.4 Channel Dolby Atmos True HD MKV & Auro 3D Immersive Audio.  

The celebration of Yule in Northern Europe harks back to a transition from ancient Pagan Germanic culture to the more formal spirituality of the newer Christian rite. Christmas, as we mostly now call it, gave us hymns, processions and chants, and in between, silence in church. Yule meant a vibrant pre-Christian secularity, with feasting and dancing, the noise of instruments and decorating the house with holly, ivy and mistletoe as a tribute to the gods of earth and air.

Much of the music on this album dates from an earlier time when in a throwback to Yule churches were decorated with Christmas greenery, and at home there would be carols sung round a burning Yule log, the two traditions side by side. But the songs on this album are contemporary performances, a matrix where immaculate a cappella voices meet improvising instruments in a synthesis of secular and sacred. There’s no knowing how the earliest Christmas songs were created, but the first ones must have been passed on orally until someone wrote them down. Writing, then later printing, set the songs free, and some travelled all over Europe, adopted by singers who then made their own versions. New songs were made, but many ancient ones survived the centuries, each new performer passing on their own memories of a song to the next generation. Alongside this oral tradition more formal manuscript collections were created in church and cloister as clerics composed new chants for their own communities.

These historical processes are intertwined throughout this album, which is very much a product of the Trio Mediæval aesthetic; there are medieval compositions from England, arrangements of North European music by Tone Krohn, Anders Jormin and by trio members Anna Maria Friman, Linn Andrea Fuglseth and Jorunn Lovise Husan, together with a new composition by Norway’s English composer Andrew Smith.

Trio Mediæval
Sinikka Langeland, Kantele
Vegar Vårdal,  Hardanger, Fiddle & Violin
Arve Henriksen, Trumpet & Organ
Anders Jormin, Double Bass
Helge Norbakken, Percussion