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 063-30 108 - (1 lp) - durata 43' 57" - (p) 1973 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26475 2 - (1 cd) - durata 43' 57" - (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. LEON Ben com' aos que van per mar a estrela guia Cantiga 49 Along the Camino Francés between Burgos and León is the town of Sahagún, historically important for the introduction of the Cluniac reform into León in the 11th century. South of the city on the hill is the 13th century church of the Franciscan monastery La Perigrin. Here the Pilgrim Virgen is venerated who, as told in this story, converted her staff into a ray of light to guide the pilgrims by night.. De grad a Santa Maria Cantiga 253 Between Burgos and León, some 377 kilometers from Santiago de Compostela, lies Villalcazár de Sirga, originally Santa Maria de Villasirga or simply Villasirga. Here we find the church of Santa Maria la Blanca, dating from the early 12th century and containing the sepulchre of Don Felipe and Doña Leonor. Don Felipe was the reconqueror of Sevilla and brother of Alfonso X el Sabio, compiler of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and perhaps it is in that connection that we find here the Virgen of the Cantigas, to whom so many miracles have been attributed. The miracle desribed in this cantiga occured before the altar of this church, above the tomb of Don Felipe and Doña Leonor. GALICIA Dum Pater familias Latin Song Appended to the Codex Calixtinus is a leaf, possibly older than the rest, containing this pilgrim song. Perhaps it was well known, and perhaps it once had a text entirely in the vernacular - the present text is mixed Latin and vernacular. The transcription of the melody and the text is that of Eusebio Goicoechea, who suggests that the song had some didactic intent, for example through bringing the name Santiago in several declentions, Iacobus, Iacobi, Iacobo. A madre de Deus Cantiga 184 Somewhere in the mountains along the present border between León and Galicia, perhaps in the region of the Senora de Picos with its peak of 2214 meters, lived the woman whose story is told in this cantiga. Nostra phalans plaudat Conductus The Codex Calixtinus mentioned above several times, is indeed a pilgrims' guide book. Yet it contains in addition a lot of music of 12th century Santiago ge Compostela. Many of the songs are specifically devoted to St. James, as is this one, which reminds the singer and the listener of the story behind Santiago de Compostela. Sol eclysim Planctus Fernando II, King of León, was not permitted the distinction earned by his brother Alfonso VIII (see above). His hopes of adding Portugal to his domain were of no lasting significance. Yet on his death a planctus was written which was destined to survive in a manuscript in Florence, with music probably adapted from some other poem in as much as the musical and poetic structures differ, The performance style given this monophonic piece is that of Friuli and many other European country traditions preserved today only in remote areas. Two shawns form a frame around the text, while the singers employ a singular sort of improvised counterpoint employing much dissonance and steriotyped cadences that differ greatly from the clausula vera of the High western tradition. Thomas Binkley
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"