Three Medieval Recordings

These medieval cantigas and lais troubadour compositions from Galicia and France, respectively display an innovation of the 12th and 13th centuries: themes of courtly love and Marian devotion combined, at once carnal and mystical, encompassing both the profane and the divine. The two lais on this recording are found in a manuscript songbook known as the Noailles Chansonnier from c.1300. In the anonymous Plainte de la Vierge au pied de la croix the Virgin Mary speaks in first person in a figurative lament at the foot of the cross. The Lai de Notre Dame, attributed to 13th-century troubadour Ernoul Le Vieux or Le Vielle, begins with the authors promise to keep faith with the Virgin Mary and serve no other woman, a pledge quite reminiscent of those of Alfonso X of Castile in his Cantigas de Santa Maria, one of the largest collections of monophonic songs from the Middle Ages. The Cantigas, attributed to King Alfonso X (12211284), were written in early-Medieval Galician-Portuguese, fashionable as a lyrical language in Castile at the time. In Santa Maria loei, e loo e loarei, the king thanks the Virgin Mary for her kindness and protection. Nenbressete, Madre de Deus deals with Marys role as mediator in medieval eyes, her primary function. It was composed as a contrafactum on Recordare, translating the antiphon into Galician-Portuguese and expanding it with new musical and poetic concepts. Virgen Madre groriosa, a contrafactum on the estampie Reis Glorios by French troubadour Giraut de Bornelh, binds this album together, demonstrating the relationship between the Galician-Portuguese and French lyrics. To the members of Malandança, medieval music is a field in which both performance and scholarship are unavoidable and interdependent subjects. Research conducted by Francisco Luengo and others into sculptures depicting medieval instruments has opened up a world of sounds, ideas, images and voices from the distant Middle Ages.                

From Early Music Review: Singer Maria Giménez is accompanied by a consort of medieval instruments derived from sculptures including the organistrum, five-stringed vyola, vyolón, citole, Romanesque harp and skin-faced medieval lute (all beautifully illustrated in the programme booklet). Daringly the performers open with a 16-minute account of the Plainte de la Vierge au pied de la croix, and, as it turns out, the compelling singing and creative use of the instrumental accompaniment more than hold the attention. Xurxo Varela provides a wonderfully contrasting male voice for the Recordare for the Feast of Mary Mediatrix, but it is Maria Giménez who chiefly holds our attention for what turns out to be a riveting sequence of medieval Marian music. The narcotic effect of drones and Giménez’s engaging narrative style lead us through a couple of lengthy but compelling items, concluding with one of Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa Maria, Virgen Madre groriosa. This is a very atmospheric and informative CD, presenting music which can be challenging to the modern listener, but which they perform so persuasively that we are drawn in.