Spectacular recording of Muslim/Christian medieval music
Scott Shuster | New York, NY USA | 03/26/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"A CD so wonderful it almost belies description. If you love medieval European music, you will adore this CD and discover new sounds that will touch your heart and lead your musical interest down new paths. If you love ancient classical Turkish, Arabic, or Sudanese (solo oud) music, you will thrill to hear how these genres contributed to the European classical tradition: This phenomenon of ancient fusion is beautifully demonstrated here. If you love classical lute or guitar, get ready to love the 'ud ("oud") -- predecessor of both. Indeed, the word "lute" it turns out, comes from the word 'ud. This CD has it all -- it is a recording of the highest imaginable technical quality ("96khz high sampling") performed by artists whose whole souls seem to have been poured into these sessions, recorded at an ancient Spanish monastery. Ethereal, touching, historically valuable. Culturally enlightening notes (in Spanish and English)...simply wonderful."
Exceptional interpretation of Medieval music. Buy It!
B. Marold | Bethlehem, PA United States | 09/23/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"`Salterio' and `Mudejar' are two albums by Spanish Psaltery instrumentalist, Begona Olavide, backed up by an ensemble centered around the Eduardo Paniagua group, of which Senora Olavide is a sometime member. She also owes much to Senor Paniagua as it is from his Spanish antique instrument workshop that she obtains her medieval and Renaissance Spanish and Moorish stringed instruments.
Since I am not an expert on medieval Spanish and Moorish music, I can only approach these recordings from the point of view of a general fan of music, who also happens to have listened to a lot of Medieval and renaissance music.
One thing I can get out of the way quickly is the opinion that I think the recording quality on these CDs is superb. Even listening to the recordings on a pair of cheap earphones on my CD Walkman, I get a great sense of depth, as I can almost place the various instruments in space in relation to the microphones. This should be no surprise, as the recording company, M.A Recordings and the CD package designer(s) go out of their way to inform us of the very high quality of the equipment used in making the recordings. This is the sort of thing which used to send Jazz HiFi nuts into gagaland in the early days of vinyl HiFi and Stereo recordings. I tend go simply gloss over this stuff and just appreciate the quality of the sound.
A much more important fact to point out is that the notes on the music and the instruments are much more elaborate for the `Salterio' album than for `Mudejar'. So, since the quality of the performances on the two albums is at a very consistently high level, I strongly urge you to get `Salterio' first. As these notes explain, much of the instrumental performances from both Senora Olavide and her sidemen is done on reconstructions of 600 year old instrument designs, of which no original exemplars exist. That means Paniagua's shop literally reverse engineered the triangular Psaltery, Rota, Psalterion, Qanun, Small Wing, Large Wing, Barroque Psaltery, hand vihuela, barroque Guitar, and Thiorba from period pictures and text, plus an understanding of what can be done with the materials at hand and the musical instrument making technology of the period.
This is musical reconstruction with original instruments with a vengeance. I, for one, am really happy they have done this great effort, which, for them, must be a real labor of love. I am especially happy that this record company has brought this to the American public.
Once I get past the great first impression made by these performances, I realize that these performances are really a lot more sophisticated than many reconstructions of French, German, Italian, and English pieces from the same period. Not only that, they are more sophisticated than much of the Middle Eastern music I hear on Sunday afternoon on my local NPR station. This recently recorded music almost sounds primitive compared to these very old pieces done on genuinely primitive instruments.
To fans of this music, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir. To people who just happen to be dialing in from my cookbook reviews, I strongly recommend you give these recordings a try if you are on the lookout for a new musical experience.
"
Track Listings (14) - Disc #1