Dia: A chantar m' er de ço qu'eu no volria

During the second half of the 12th century there grew up in the south of France a new style of secular song: that of the troubadours - trobadors, literally 'finders, inventors' of poems and melodies. Singing of love or politics, strict morality or licentiousness, they were an inspiration to Spanish and Italian musicians as wells as the French trouvères and the German minnesingers.

This CD was released for the first time in 1977.

Troubadours songs; laude to the Virgin and estampies from trecento mingle with Sephardic lullabies and folksongs collected in Italy. They tell the stories of simple men and women of the Mediterranean world. Languages and music have survived to the din of the wars, religious conquests, political dominations between North and South… This record is an intimate compilation which raises from the old village song telling the cycle of life, the redemption sought with the Virgin, the curtly love of the Countess of Die, Tarentella or the famous separdic lullaby Nani, Nani for the beloved son…« Ever since antiquity, the shores of the Mediterranean have assembled men and women who share a cultural heritage with multiple resonances. (religious and cultural : christians, jews, arabs, languages : castillan, occitan, florentin, napolitain, sarde…). These pieces say something about their loves, their faith, sometimes their fears, in any case their wisdom and their appetite for life. In so doing, they allow us to glimpse their intimate existence. The combination of the voices of Brigitte Lesne, well-known to and admired by lovers of medieval music, and Carlo Rizzo, specialist in the traditional songs of the Italian peninsula, creates links and contrasts enhanced by the use of early instruments (the medieval harp, for example) and others more readily associated with the traditional repertory (such as flutes of Pierre Hamon and tabors of Carlo Rizzo) to produce a lively, colourful whole that sets the imagination vibrating. » Geneviève Brunel-Lobrichon.

A genuine journey through eternal mediterranean space between Antiquity, Medieval periods and living traditions.

An Irish lady pirate, a Portuguese queen, a Montenegrin mother, a French countess, a Jewish-American socialist, the Virgin Mary, and St. Ursula together with 11,000 other virgins are all featured on Faces of a Woman by Tapestry, the second MDG release by these three women from New England! The ensemble covers songs from around the world. From Hildegard von Bingen’s mystical and contemplative songs to Rachmaninov’s pleasant tones and to swinging rhythms, from medieval operatic drama to Balkan folklore and to modern music, to sailors’ songs and the first American blues.