Boston Camerata - A Mediterranean Christmas
Boston Camerata - A Mediterranean Christmas
FLAC+Cue+Log | Scans | 1 CD | 320 MB
Early Music | Warner Classics | 2005
FLAC+Cue+Log | Scans | 1 CD | 320 MB
Early Music | Warner Classics | 2005
Just in time for the holidays, Warner Classics has delivered ''A Mediterranean Christmas," the latest installment of a very popular series of holiday recordings by Joel Cohen and the Boston Camerata. Six previous Camerata Christmas records remain steady seasonal sellers on CD. The newest one presents a significant and entertaining cross-cultural collaboration between five regular Camerata performers and five musicians from different musical traditions – the three members of the Boston-based Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble, and Equidad Bares and Hayet Ayad, superb vocalists based in France who specialize in folk traditions of the Mediterranean region.Program:
The live performances before Christmas last year represented a reunion of artists who had triumphed under difficult circumstances in a national tour of an earlier Camerata program, ''Cantigas." The Moroccan musicians who had toured and recorded the program in Europe failed to get visas in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but Cohen discovered the local musicians from Sharq, who saved the day. A revision of the Camerata's 1980 ''Mediterranean Christmas" program provided an opportunity to get everyone together again. In high summer, June/July 2005, the group reassembled to make the recording in the Church of the Covenant.
It is a delight, propelled by the pungent, contrasting voices of the folk singers and their interaction with sopranos Anne Azema and Anne Harley, and by the equally pungent sounds of the Arabic instruments played by Sharq. Even the names of the instruments fascinate – riqq, tar, darabuka, raita.
Some of the music comes from the court of Alfonso el Sabio, king of Spain in a period when Christians, Arabs, and Jews worked in productive coexistence – with interesting cross-cultural consequences. The program also includes music from France, Italy, and North Africa, and from art and folk traditions, all of it programmed by Cohen for maximum variety and effect.
01 - I The Sign of Judgement – Taksim Farahfazqa,Respondemos
02 - I The Sign of Judgement – Madre de Deus
03 - II The Dawn Approaching – Gregis pastor
04 - II The Dawn Approaching – Gloria 'n cielo
05 - II The Dawn Approaching – Senher Dieus,Lux refulget
06 - III Star of the Day – Santa Maria, strela do dia
07 - III Star of the Day – Polorum regina
08 - III Star of the Day – Como somos per conssello
09 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Ave maris stella,O Maria, Deu maire
10 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Mei amic e mei fiel
11 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Todo logar mui ben,Taouchia (from Nouba Gribt Lahcine)
12 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Noi siamo i magi
13 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Quando el rey Nimrod
14 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Heu! Heu!
15 - IV The Birth of Jesus – Pastres, placatz vostre troupèu
16 - IV The Birth of Jesus – En Belén tocan a fuego
17 - V Mother and Child – Duérmete, niño duérme
18 - V Mother and Child – Nani na ya srira
19 - V Mother and Child – Borea (prelude),Tant' aos peccadores