Lost 1,000-Year-Old Song from Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy Reconstructed and Performed

After over two decades of research, Cambridge University's Dr. Sam Barrett has reconstructed melodies from an 11th-century leaf of the 'Cambridge Songs,' enabling the first performance in 1,000 years of 'Songs of Consolation,' a song set to poetic portions of Roman philosopher Boethius' 6th-century magnum opus 'The Consolation of Philosophy.' The reconstruction was challenging because medieval music notation recorded melodic outlines but not precise pitches, relying on oral traditions that died out in the 12th century. Barrett identified techniques used to set verse forms, allowing him to recover the lost melodies. The piece was performed by Benjamin Bagby, Hanna Marti, and Norbert Rodenkirchen of the medieval music ensemble Sequentia.