LUX FEMINÆ

Seven portraits of woman from ancient Hesperia

 

Montserrat Figueras (canto)

Tina Aagaard, Arianna Savall (sopranos)

Laurence Bonnal (contralto)

Begoña Olavide (mezzo, psalterium)

Andrew Lawrence-King (arpa cruzada)

Jordi Savall (lira, rebab, violas da gamba)

Frederike Heumann, Fahmi Alqhai (bass viols)

Pierre Hamon (flutes)

Driss El Maloumi (oud)

Rolf Lislevand (guitar)

Marc Clos, Carlo Rizzo (perc)

 

Following Ninna Nanna [AV9826], the hugely successful lullabies album by Montserrat Figueras, Lux Feminae is all about the essence of the feminine.

 

The words and music, spanning from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, focus on the central role of woman in Hispanic culture, whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, illustrating the rich, profound and multi-faceted myth of the universal feminine. As authors, the source of inspiration or dedicatees, women have enriched a musical heritage which ranges from the traditional Song of the Sybil; the Hispano-Arabic jarchas; the Galician-Portuguese Cantigas de Amigo expressing a woman's longing for her beloved; to the mystical poems written by Saint Teresa of Jesus: popular lullabies, passionate devotional saetas sung during Holy Week and Sephardic Jewish ballads.

 

Luxury 180page book

Langages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Catalan

 

This fascinatingly eclectic sequence of early Spanish music brings together some exceptionally fine pieces, ranging from a hauntingly beautiful 10th-century Sybilline Prophecy to a simple but deeply expressive song of courtly love by the female troubadour Beatritz de Dia. With some deliciously naughty and playful 16th-century villancicos, this is a most imaginatively conceived celebration of women's lives and their creative and spiritual gifts.

Such items as the infinitely sad 12th-century Jarcha Gar kom lebare, sung to a melody still heard in Morocco, and the heartbreaking Sephardic lament of a Jewish girl condemned to death by the Inquisition, also bring medieval Spain vividly to life as a melting pot of Western, Arabic and Jewish culture.

Montserrat Figueras's vocal versatility, coupled with the fastidiously chosen instrumental colours, recreate some very distant sound-worlds, with an extraordinary immediacy that brings out the full emotional power of every piece. At the same time, the wealth of wonderfully appropriate and beautifully reproduced illustrations from Eastern and Western traditions in the accompanying booklet make this release a feast for the eye as well as for the ear.

Elizabeth Roche, Telegraph

 

Alia Vox SACD AVSA9847