Search - Monch von Salzburg, Spanish Anonymous, Oswald von Wolkenstein :: The Ancient Miracles

You may find the liner notes confusing. You really have to look for the tiny, skimpy descriptions of the music. But the listening's great. At first you may think you're sitting in on a session from a later century; the first track sounds more like something from Riverdance than from a 14th century manuscript. But, hey, everything new had to come from someplace. The excellent performers on this disc convince us that this just may be the most exciting and engaging music anywhere--the solo voices are polished and exude real personality; the instruments are played with a real sense of style. Even if this isn't how those medieval folks did it, we can easily accept these interpretations as authentic. Most of the selections are from the 14th century and before, and the programming shows that early music can be just as much fun as the modern stuff. You just have to know where to find it and what to do with it. These performers do. --David Vernier