“El poder espiritual de la música antigua” “Spiritual power of Early ...

twenty-seven poems that have been handed down to us with
their corresponding musical notation adorned with extraordinary
miniatures. They combine tales of miracles popular in the Middle
Ages with praises to the Virgin Mary and are a testament to the
Marian devotion that developed in parallel to the construction of
the Gothic cathedrals.
The Cantigas are considered to be Alfonso X’s most personal
work and although they came from different sources and diverse
collaborators a structured order is evident. Since the songbook was
first written in about 1260, the presentation has always reflected
the original personal verse and coherent symbolic design. A late
troubadour, Alfonso chooses the tradition of “courtly love” as a
way of giving his Lady the parchment codices with the songs
dedicated to her.
The repertoire is extraordinarily rich as its melodies are all
different and original. The formal structure of verses with a refrain
makes them suitable for popular participation.
PNEUMA: COLLECTION OF THE CANTIGAS OF
ALFONSO X THE WISE
The release in 1994 of the CDs “Cantigas of Toledo” and
“Cantigas of Castile and Leon” was the start of the projected
anthology of the 427 Cantigas of Alfonso X to be recorded by
Pneuma. The collection was then continued temporarily by Sony
Classical within the Hispanica collection and has now been taken
up again by PNEUMA. Existing recordings as well as new
CDs are included in the COLLECTION OF CANTIGAS
OF ALFONSO X BY PNEUMA, all recorded by Eduardo
Paniagua with his group Música Antigua.
The codices of the Cantigas of Holy Mary have been called the
aesthetic bible of the 13th century, in which all the elements
of medieval art appear condensed in encyclopaedic form: music,
poetry and painting.
Eduardo Paniagua has approached the complete recording of the
Cantigas by presenting the works according to different criteria
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that give unity and personality to each CD. One criterion is the
geographical location of the stories that are told according to the
towns or Marian sanctuaries where certain miracles took place.
Another criterion is the subject matter; for example, healing of
the sick, stories of knights, the life of Holy Mary. A third criterion
is musical similarity; perhaps they are played by one family of
instruments or a solo instrument.
The Cantigas are performed with the complete original text,
although in this selection abridged versions have been included to
add variety to the sample.
The miniatures of the Cantigas of Holy Mary are a beautiful
document in themselves, not only because of the perfection of
the drawing and colour, but also because of the information that
they give about daily life in the medieval Spain of the Three
Cultures - Christian, Arab and Jewish. They also have a great
iconographic value, as each group of ten Cantigas is accompanied
by numerous drawings of musical instruments. Scenes of chant
and dance appear in some of the narrative which today constitute
the principal source for the reconstruction of both the instruments
and the musical atmosphere later included in the performance.
The Collection intends to go beyond the exclusively musical,
evoking the human and cultural background of these medieval
works.