Luogo e data di registrazione		Bürgerbräu. München (Germania) - 1972
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Wolfgang Gülich
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 063-30 107 - (1 lp) - durata 37' 53" - (p) 1973 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26474 2 - (1 cd) - durata 37' 53" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

Medieval Music along the Prigrim Route of Saint James, 13th Century The story began in Jaffa, today an Arab town just outside of Tel Aviv, where in the first century Jacob war born, brother of John and son of Zebedeo and Maria Salomé, who was the sister of Mary, mother of Jesus. This direct connection to the Holy Family lends importance to the place containing the remains of the evangelist St. James. James - Jacob - Iago - Saint Iago - Santiago went to Spain to preach and returned eventually to Jerusalem, where he was decapitated by Herodes Agrippa some ten or twelve years after the death of Jesus. His remains were brought back to Spain, to rest in the palace of a wealthy follower. Centuries passed, armies came and went, and then in the ninth century with the aid of a miraculous light, a hermit rediscovered the sepulchre. Today this place is called Santiago de Compostela, St. James in the Field of Stars. Thus it was that Santiago de Compostela joined Jerusalem (Holy Sepulchre) and Rome (St. Peters) as one of the focal points of Christian pilgrimage. The Camino, the road leading o Santiago is really a complex of many roads coming from different places, the Camino del Mar, the Camino Portugués, the Camino de Cataluña etc. It was however the Camino Francés which was the most important for it was the most international. Pilgrims from all over Europe walked and rode over its many byways for centuries. At reasonable distances along the route were hostles where the pilgrims might stop over, these frequently being operated by monasteries. Pilgrims enjoyed a considerable civil protection under the law, and were entitled to free food and lodging as well as to information about the roads and bridges and the location of potable water between hostles. In some places this is still true today for bona fide pilgrims. Of all the adventures that happened along the Camino, the religious adventures take precedence. The miracles of Our Lady are to some extent recorded in the Cantigas of Alfonso X El Sabio, the Cantigas de Santa Maria, one of our main sources here. Not all of the music along the Camino told of miracles -there are hymns and exaltations as well. This then is what these recordings are about. The songs tell about specific happenings along the Camino, and for the most part, the places where they happened are still there and can be visited. So we make our own pilgrimage in sound along the Camino Francés, through Navarra, Castile, León and ending in Galicia, the province of Santiago de Compostela. What is the music? It is the meeting of the way between folk music of the past and profound poetry. It is a natural music, built on text and melody and improvisation, the really human elements of the musical art. It has also a touch of the speculative or cogitative qualities that catch the mind and bind the listener. Christian and Moorish elements join together, poems in the form of the Arabic zejel performed with a Moorish orchestra, Latin conducti in the Roman tradition... but music can seldom be described it must be heard. Here is a coileotion of surprising scope, encompassing some of the most grandiose music of the Middle Ages and some of the most intimate. NAVARRA Quen a Virgen Cantiga 103 Two forks of the Camino Francés meet inside Spain at Puente la Reina. One passes from San Miguel through Viscarret and leads on through Pamplona, while the other, coming from Arles, crosses at Berce, and leads on through Jaca and Monreal. Between Jaca and Puente la Reina, more precisely between Sangüesa and Yesa just inside the province of Navarra, a road leads north to the monastery of San Salvador de Leyre. Here in the 10th century was an abbot, San Virila, who is said to have never known boredom, and thus was he able to pass 300 years listening to the song of a bird, as told in this contiga. The man, a historic personage who was born in Tiermas, nearby, just over the border into the province of Zaragosa, was active at the monastery of Samos, which is between Santiago de Compostela and León, near Triacastela. His remains were interred in Leyre, to be moved later to the cathedral at Pamplona. Seigneurs, sachiez qui or ne s’en ira Teobaldo, Rey de Navarra Not far from Puente la Reina along the Camino Francés is the town of Estrella, today a delight in its unpretensious traditional atmosphere coupled with its historic monuments and very excellent cuisine. Much of what is there today was well known to Teobaldo, who further north is known as Thibaut, comte de Champaigne (1201-1253), and who was one of the most prolific troubadours. He was French-speaking, and his occasional presence there must have been some encouragement to the French pilgrims, who stopped there to enjoy that which was described in the 12th century tourist guide-book, Codex  Calixtinus, as "such good bread, excellent wine and abundant meat and fish, and full of every happiness." Con gaudeant catholici Conductus Of the many Latin songs connected to the Camino de Santiago, this is today the best known. As is the case with many pieces in this genre, it was probably a simple Latin song originally, then it was made into a two-voice conductus and here we have it in its final form as a three part piece. As such, it is well known as the earliest three-voice composition..., it is taken from the Codex Calixtinus, where it bears the attribution to Magister Albertus Parisiensis. CASTILLA Plange Castilla Planctus Countries change. The Kingdom of Castile is now called Old Castile in difference to the modern province surrounding Madrid. Fernando I, son of Sancho of Navarra, called el Mayor, King of the Spains, ascended the throne in Burgos in 1035. This capital and residerics rapidly became an important city in medieval Europe. Roland, Orlando, El Cid Campeador made the city famous for us, but for the pilgrims along the Camino de Santiago, Burgos was the most prominent resting place some 420 km from Santiago as the crow flies, with a multitude of hostles and with special laws governing the gates to the city and other matters regarding the travellers. Sancho II (reg. 1065-1072) reunited Castile with the kingdoms of León and Galicia, and Alfonso VI (1072-1109) continued. Alfonso's daughter Urraca was married to Raymond of Burgundy, who, the chronicles tell us, beat his wife in public. She withdrew to Galicia, and made war on her husband and saw her son recognized in Galicia as king, even during her lifetime. This son, Alfonso VII (reg. 1120-1157), called Emperor of Spain, to enable him to have Moorish royalty among his vassals, had two sons; on his death he left Castile to his eldest and Leon to his second son. Sancho III was the eldest son (reg. 1157-1158), whose rule was but a single year. This is the man, the king, whose passing is lamented in the planctus. His brother Fernando II and his son Alfonso VIII are mourned in “Quis dabit" and “sol eclysim”. Non e gran causa Cantiga 26 The cleric Gonzalo de Berceo, active 1230-1255 in San Millán (Rioja), was a writer who some feet tried to make of popular literature something elevated and erudite. He was fascinated by the musicians, the juglares, and it is clear that he pointed his work at the same illiterate audience. It is interesting to find among the works of this prolific popular poet an account of the Roman who went to Santiago, the same story told in this Cantiga. Quis dabit Planctus Alfonso VIII (reg. 1158-1214) brought a generation of culture and learning to Burgos, for which he was called El Noble. His other appellage, El de las Navas, refers lo his success in war, specifically his victory in 1212 at Las Navas de Toloso, over the Almohades, the turning point of Christian influence in Moslem Spain. He married Eleanor, sister of Richard the Lionhearted, daughter of Henry II of England, himself husband of Eleonor of Aquitaine, daughter of the first troubadour. He fetched his bride in 1170 in the company of thirty known troubadours, and he had among his own musicians Arabs, Christians and Jews. Their court was a meeting place of these three Spanish cultures, and its elegance was praised by the troubadour Peire Vidal. Among his many services rendered to Castile, the founding of the monastery Las Huelgas is of particular significance for us today, because it is still there, still a monastery, one of the very few that remained in essentially unbroken operation since its founding. This monastery owns a manuscript containing the musical repertory of the institution during our period. Towards the end of the manuscript, a few laments are to be found on the death of some Spanish kings as well as an abbess. It seems to us likely that Alfonso VIII is the intended subject of this lament or planctus. Thomas Binkley
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"