The Cantigas
of Alfonso El Sabio appear not to be
commercially very viable. Of the many
versions which have appeared, even those
which postdate the original issue of
this Nimbus recording, only a handful
remain in the catalogue – just seven
in the UK, by my reckoning, not counting
the Portugalsom version of six of the
Cantigas with other pieces, a
special-order edition reviewed
here in 2001; I’m not sure if this is
still available.
King
Alfonso contrived to bring together
the cream of Christian, Moslem and Jewish
scholars and musicians, for which he
was graced with the title el Sabio,
the Wise Man. His patronage of Arab
scholars helped the Christian world
to rediscover the lost works of Greek
antiquity, including scientific texts
which had been preserved in Arabic.
Today the only surviving reminders of
the harmony which briefly existed in
medieval Spain are provided by the Mozarabic
liturgy, celebrated in a side chapel
in Toledo Cathedral, and the splendid
manuscripts which contain the Cantigas.
The Mozarabic liturgy contains the text
of the Mass which was tolerated in Arab-controlled
medieval Spain, in sharp contrast with
the lack of tolerance shown centuries
later by Ferdinand and Isabella when
they gained control. Sadly, Alfonso’s
enlightened attitude was not combined
with political nous and did not
prevent his downfall.
The Cantigas,
some probably by Alfonso himself, are
a collection of 425 poems in Galician
dialect, closer to Portuguese than to
modern Spanish, recounting miracles
attributed to the Virgin Mary, Cantigas
de miragre. Each tenth piece contains
the rubric Esta é de loor
de Santa Maria – ‘This is in praise
of Saint Mary’ – known as Cantigas
de loor, or Songs of praise. Alongside
the cult of fin amors, or courtly
love, the cult of the Virgin Mary was
developing in the late 12th
and 13th centuries. Guiraut
de Bornelh’s Reis glorios, the
final piece on another Martin Best Nimbus
recording which I recently recommended,
Forgotten Provence (NI5445, see
review)
shows this process developing in the
troubadour homeland of Provence; the
Cantigas show it in full spate.
In Rosa
das Rosas the Virgin is addressed
in language which would be equally appropriate
in courtly love: she is the rose of
all roses, the mistress whom a man must
love, the lady whose troubadour the
singer wishes to be: "Esta dona
que tenno por Sennor/e de que quero
seer trobador."
One
recording which has survived and is
likely to survive the deletions axe
is on Naxos 8.553133, a performance
of thirteen of the Cantigas by
the Ensemble Unicorn, Vienna. This CD
has the advantage of opening with the
Prologue to the collection and closing
with the Epilogue (both wrongly stated
to be Cantiga 60), neither of
which is included on the Nimbus recording.
Martin Best provides his own logic by
opening the Nimbus CD with a pilgrim
song, Santa María, Strella
do dia, in which Mary is addressed
as the day-star from on high which will
serve as the pilgrims’ guide.
The
Naxos recording contains just 13 pieces
against the 22 on Nimbus, though it
offers almost ten minutes more playing
time. The reasons for this will become
apparent.
Only
three works are common to both recordings.
Both abridge Virgen, Madre Gloriosa
(no.340); Naxos offer the first
half of the first stanza and the last
three stanzas (8:32), whereas the Martin
Best Ensemble performs only the first
stanza and refrain (2:35), without either
set of notes acknowledging the abridgement.
Both obscure the pattern of the work,
whereby each stanza after the first
begins with the words Tu es alva,
‘thou art the dawn’, taking up the word
alva from the end of the first
stanza:
Ca Deus, que é lum’ e dia,
Segund’ a nossa natura
Non viramos sa figura
Senon por ti, que fust alva.
[For God, who is the light of day,
would not have been seen by us in
person, because of our [limited] nature,
had it not been for you, the dawn.]
The
instrumental accompaniment is richer
and, thus, more intrusive, on the Ensemble
Unicorn recording. Listeners will have
their own preferences in this respect;
I can take both. The singing (counter-tenor
on Naxos, tenor on Nimbus) is more reflective
than Martin Best’s, the recording rather
closer. As on most of the Nimbus CDs
which I have heard recently, the Martin
Best recording needs a boost of 2 or
3 dB to make it sound really well.
In Rosa
das Rosas, actually No.10, not 330
as stated in the Nimbus booklet, the
Martin Best version again abbreviates
the piece considerably, Ensemble Unicorn
not at all. Both performances handle
this piece reverentially, the Nimbus
slightly more so than the Naxos.
The
Martin Best Ensemble split Entre
Av’e Eva between tracks 11 and 22.
I can see the logic behind this arrangement
– each half of the programme ends with
this almost archetypal piece of medieval
Mariolatry – but, as with Virgen,
Madre Gloriosa, it destroys the
internal logic of the text. Ensemble
Unicorn place the whole piece at the
heart of their programme, probably for
the same reason.
The
piece is based around the very common
medieval pun on Ave, ‘hail’,
the angel’s opening words to the Virgin
Mary, and Eva, the Latin version
of the name of Eve. As the first Eva
let down the whole human race, so Gabriel’s
Ave to Mary marks its redemption.
Martin Best offers just the opening
refrain, first stanza, and first refrain;
Ensemble Unicorn sing the complete piece.
The
Naxos version is particularly effective,
with the bass-baritone singing the words
relevant to the sin of Eve in each stanza:
For
Eve exiled us from Paradise and
God;
and
the countertenor telling of the redemption
of Mary:
Ave,
however, restored us [to Paradise],
my friends:
then
both sing the refrain:
Between
Ave and Eva there
is a great difference.
On Nimbus,
the whole stanza is sung by the solo
singer, with (all?) the other voices
joining in the refrain; this would have
been effective if we had been allowed
to hear more of the piece.
The
Nimbus CD contains a greater number
of the loores in praise of the
Virgin Mary, eleven of the 22 tracks;
the Naxos contains only three such pieces
out of 13 tracks. As the loores
count for only one in ten of the complete
Cantigas, the Naxos recording
therefore offers a more rounded, though
still distorted, indication of their
place in the whole collection.
Virgen,
Madre is not the only piece on the
Martin Best recording to be drastically
shortened.
In particular,
most of the pieces which deal with miracles
are presented by Martin Best in shortened
versions. At least, the notes in the
booklet acknowledge this, if only by
inference, as in Santa María
amar, where the booklet fills in
with a summary from "the complete
song". Not all these Cantigas
de miragre are solemn; Non sofre
Santa María (The Lost Steak)
could almost be a piece of Chaucerian
knockabout. It receives a suitably robust
performance.
Sometimes
the translations in the booklet seem
confused about exactly which portions
of the texts are actually sung. In Se
ome fezer de grado, the introduction
is omitted, as acknowledged in the booklet,
but the performance is of the first
two stanzas, whereas the booklet translates
the last two stanzas. Presumably
the eminent translator, Professor Jack
Sage, could hardly believe that the
performance would omit the final stanza
in which the miracle is narrated – the
Cantiga is nonsensical without
it, for all the vitality with which
it is sung here. But, then, without
texts and with the translation giving
a false impression, how is the listener
to know that (s)he is effectively being
short-changed?
In several
of the Cantigas which narrate
the miracles of the Virgin, both ensembles
at times employ rhythmic speech – a
kind of medieval Sprechstimme
– to tell the story. On Naxos the story
is often delivered in a forceful and
dramatic manner. Some may feel this
to be over the top, but I found that
it added spice to the works, especially
as I don’t find it overdone here.
On some
recordings of medieval music, one feels
that the performers have gone out of
their way to over-characterise and stress
the rough edges of the music; that is
not the case with either version under
consideration, though the Naxos leans
further in that direction. Sometimes
the Martin Best Ensemble use the declamatory
style, at others they slightly under-characterise
the music. If Ensemble Unicorn declaim
the story as to a large audience, the
Martin Best singers sometimes seem to
be confiding the story to one person.
In Se ome fezer de grado, for
example, the narration is delivered
sotto voce. Both performances
are lively; both should readily appeal
to the modern listener.
Since
Alfonso was inconsiderate enough not
to leave us his own definitive recording
of the Cantigas, there is clearly
room for a choice of interpretations.
Even in their own time, these works
were probably performed in a variety
of ways, depending on the availability
of singers and instrumentalists. Both
booklets list the instruments employed,
a broadly similar assortment, and both
make the point that the instruments
employed are all depicted in manuscripts
of the Cantigas.
Both
performances and recordings have sufficient
going for them, and there is so little
overlap of pieces anyway, for me to
recommend both. If forced to choose,
I should recommend the Naxos as the
better choice for beginners in the hope
that they will like what they hear so
much that they soon go for the Nimbus,
too – and for their Forgotten Provence
CD, too.
If you’re
still looking for more, there is a version
on Warner Apex with the Camerata Mediterranea
and the Andalusian Orchestra of Fez,
directed by Joel Cohen: 2564 61924 2,
at bargain price and strongly recommended
on Musicweb. (see review.)
As with
the Forgotten Provence CD, it
is something of an irritation that the
original texts are not provided, only
part-summaries, part-translations. The
Naxos is no improvement in this respect.
The original texts are, however, available
online,
arranged on the (French) home-page by
Cantiga number. Click on the
Cantiga number for a midem file
to open in your Media Player, or on
the opening words for the text. The
spellings of the online texts differ
slightly from those given by Nimbus;
the Cantigas exist in several
manuscripts, each reflecting slight
dialectual variations. (Madre groriosa
for Madre gloriosa, for example;
but Rosas das Rosas is a typo
in the web version for Rosa das Rosas.)
There is also an Oxford
database for
the Cantigas.
The
notes in the Nimbus booklet are brief
but informative. The Naxos booklet offers
two for the price of one, since the
French version of the notes is different
from the German and its English translation.
Both covers are appropriate and attractive:
Naxos offer an illustration juxtaposing
Eve and Mary, the theme of Entre
Av’e Eva; Nimbus have a depiction
of Alfonso’s court. Unfortunately, only
the inner portion of the original is
reproduced, depicting Alfonso presiding
over his clerical and secular scholars;
the outer wings, depicting musicians
at the court, which would have been
more appropriate, have been cropped.
Those
with a particular interest in the music
of this period may also like to note
the reissue, as part of the 50th.
Anniversary celebrations for the Telefunken
Das Alte Werk label, of the version
of the Carmina Burana (i.e. the
medieval original, not the Carl Orff
version) by the Studio der frühen
Musik under Thomas Binkley (2564 69765-9,
2 CDs).
Brian
Wilson
Martin Best Medieval Ensemble 
