OSWALD VON WOLKENSTEIN [1376/7-1445] Songs of Myself

 

Andreas Scholl (countertenor, baritone);

 

Shield O harmonies Ensemble:

Crawford Young (lute & direction);

Kathleen Dineen (soprano);

Margit Uebellacker (dulce melos);

Marc Lewon (vielle, nickelharpa)

 

Few composers can have boasted quite such a colourful existence as the medieval poet and sometime diplomat Oswald von Wolkenstein. Having grown up in a Tyrolean castle, in a world recently ripped apart by the Black Death and immersed in religious and territorial conflict, Wolkenstein became something of a wandering knight with a complicated private life. If his travels greatly embellished the subject matter of his works they also enriched the musical form, as he incorporated French songs into the German style.

A singer of warm humanity, Andreas Scholl's creamy and communicative countertenor voice has greatly endeared him to critics and public alike. This programme, the result of new research into von Wolkenstein, will feature previously unrecorded songs and instrumental arrangements.

 

Harmonia Mundi HMC902051