Jessica Sherlock | Upper Marlboro, MD United States | 04/29/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"While I found the musical tone of "Edda: Myths from Medieval Iceland" to be one of the most interesting things I have ever heard, simply due to its sheer difference from all modern sounds and genres of music, as well as from traditional "ethnic" music, the stories told in this CD are more interesting than the stories told in the first EDDA CD, but with the same haunting and otherworldly sound. The first CD set an atmosphere, this one brings you into it with gripping stories. By the end, you'll imagine that you speak icelandic, simply by following along with the liner translations while listening to the music."
Amazing
isala | 12/09/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This CD is an incredible musical odyssey through the Old Norse version of parts of the Poetic Edda and the Niebelungenlied/Volsunga Saga. The music is intense and beautiful. I also was lucky enough to see this presentation live. Unfortunately the CD does not contain all the music from the live show.If you're at all interested in Medieval Studies, Norse mythology or Icelandic Sagas, you should definitely pick this up."
Suddenly, the world disappeared and I was in the Viking age!
isala | Fairbanks, Alaska,, US | 12/23/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This album is pure magic. Since early medieval music is so different from ours it is easy to make it "boring". Not so with The Rheigold Curse sung by Sequentia. They manage to stay true to the original style while still keeping the music dynamic and magical. It really feels like you are transposed to a world where the sword rules and dragons hide in the depths of rivers. For a real outerwordly experience try and listen to it in the darkness of winter - you will not regret it."
The Music of the Lost World
Sergey Lenkov | Mother Russia | 01/21/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Very ambitious project by Sequentia - to re-create early medieval singing of the songs from Edda. Benjamin Bagby chose the songs, which later were used as model for his operas by Wagner. So it is a part of historic memory of many European nations.
Bagby plays the replicated German harp of the VIIth cent.
With him we would see the End of the World (Voluspa) and travel to the times of Attila and his wars with the Goths on the territory of the Eastern Europe (The Second Lay of Hudrun, The Lay of Atli).
There are two ways of listening to this music. You could imagine yourself in time of the Vikings (or Attila) and your thoughts would flow with the singing, playing and accompanied narration by Bagby and Sequentia into that distant time. A kind of meditative listening.
Second way - (though book with the lyrics is included) to buy the book "Edda" with comments, to read it and to understand the meaning of this epic songs. In both cases this record is very impressive. And though we would never be sure that the bards, scopes and scalds sang their songs as mr. Bagby, but I could say: "I beleive!". And "Edda" turns from the old book for the lovers of medieval literature into lively emotional human experience.
I couldn`t say that I listen to this CDs every day, you have to be in the mood to listen to this record, but I`m sure that it is one of the most unusual and interesting releases of the last years.
P.S. In 2006 mr. Bagby recorded DVD with reconstruction of live performance of "Beowulf". Look for website of Benjamin Bagby."