So this year I have treated myself to a Birthday/Christmas present (some might even say an extravagant one) a hard to find set of recordings of The Play Of Daniel and The Play Of Herod that I’ve had my eyes on for several years. Now I know early music is not everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it has always held a special sense of wonder and fascination. Noah Greenberg and New York Pro Musica are credited with reawakening in America an interest in early music performance, and their recreations of these two Medieval musical dramas were a big part of that movement. Recorded in 1958 and 1964, The Play Of Daniel and The Play of Herod were annual live performances at The Cloisters in New York City, and over the years these performances became fixtures of the New York holiday music scene until Greenberg's death in the early 70's and the eventual disbandment of the group. But in the nearly 20 or so years that New York Pro Musica and Greenberg were making music, they had a huge impact on the level of interest and attention given to early music in this country, and this recording of The Play Of Daniel has now been included in the National Recording Registry as an important hallmark of early music performance.


I hunted for these for many years, but there are only a handful of new copies still available, and even the used copies tend to start in the $80 price range and go up from there. I’ve seen a new copy listed for $259. Incredible! Well, suffice it to say I really couldn’t rationalize those prices, and so I’ve watched and waited, but this year I managed to find a, while still expensive, much more reasonably priced used copy in a Dublin music store. The internet is a wonderful thing! And so after a Quest of many years I now have in my music library The Play Of Daniel and The Play Of Herod. How cool is that? And just in time for the holidays! So here for your listening pleasure are two short excerpts from two Medieval plays recorded now some 50 years ago.

The Play of Daniel: Vos Danielem Quaerite
The Play Of Herod: Scene Three (an excerpt)

And if any of this piques the interest of any of you readers out there and you think perhaps you would like to hear more of these two plays, well, just for you I have added them both to the download list on Crow Corner. Just look for the MedievalPlays zip file. I think these are holiday treasures deserving to be shared!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Everybody!