Llibre Vermell de Montserrat [Red Book of Montserrat]

Llibre Vermell de Montserrat [Red Book of Montserrat] cover $50.00 Out of Stock
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Llibre Vermell de Montserrat [Red Book of Montserrat]
Jordi Savall (rabec, rebab, viella & direcció) / Hespèrion XXI & La Capella Reial de Catalunya

[ Alia Vox CD + DVD / 2 CD/DVD ]

Release Date: Tuesday 20 December 2016

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Recorded live in Barcelona (Church Santa Maria del Pi) November 25th, 2013

Jordi Savall had every historical, geographical and emotional reason to pay a well deserved tribute to one of the most famous manuscripts of ancient music. The 'Llibre Vermell de Montserrat' is a collection of devotional texts containing late medieval songs and dances. The 14th-century manuscript was compiled in and is still located at the monastery of Montserrat outside Barcelona in Catalonia (Spain). The title describes the red binding in which the collection was placed in the 19th century. The songs were written in Catalan, in Occitan and in Latin for the pilgrims to have something appropriately «chaste and pious» to sing and dance. In this beautiful live recording made at the Santa Maria del Pi church in Barcelona, the colorful succession of songs and dances offers us a pleasant trip to the heart of the medieval music.

"The Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria de Montserrat, perched high in the Catalonian mountains 30 miles west of Barcelona, has been a site of pilgrimage since medieval times. It's best known for La Moreneta, a 12th-century romanesque statue of the madonna, but among its other treasures is the Llibre Vermell, a codex from the very end of the 14th century that is a collection of devotional texts, prayers and papal bulls as well as a "songbook" containing 10 anonymous hymns, folksongs and dances.

Jordi Savall's performance, taken from a concert with his choir and ensemble in the very resonant acoustic of Barcelona's Santa Maria del Pi in 2013, shapes the music from the Llibre into a 70-minute sequence. The 10 numbers are punctuated by bells and interspersed with instrumental improvisations, so that as so often with Savall, it's all undeniably atmospheric." (The Guardian)

"While its subject matter is very different, the Savall release this most put me in mind was his Granada disc of 2016, one of my records of last year. It's not only fantastic music, but it's wonderfully educative, and I felt like an enriched, more enlightened person afterwards. What is art for, if not for that?" Recording of the Month MusicWeb Feb 2017