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Cantigas de Santa Maria Suite
legendary 13th century miracle songs reimagined
by Simon Thacker
premiered at the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe
See
one of the instrumental movements on
here
In an
electrifyingly original yet immediately accessible programme, Simon Thacker's acclaimed genre defying ensemble
Camerata Ritmata bring their distinctive sound to 13th
century Spanish songs of miracles, taking the listener on a journey that transcends cultures and
times.
Seven hundred years before anyone had thought of the term
"world music" a remarkable Medieval Spanish King, Alfonso X "El
Sabio” ("The Wise"), was creating it with his Cantigas de
Santa Maria, compiled at his famous court where the finest
poets, musicians, scientists and artists representing Moorish,
Jewish and Christian cultures interacted. This programme
features Thacker's suite based on these
incredible melodies, which continue to move listeners and
inspire performers after seven centuries and are here reimagined
by a musician with an innate understanding of Spanish music,
incorporating the flair for sound of classical music,
spontaneity of jazz and rhythmic invention of Indian music,
whilst reflecting their origins from the court of a King who
commissioned translations of the Bible, the Koran, the Cabala,
the Talmud and Hindustani tales. A potent and innovative union
of sacred and secular, the melodies are taken from both popular
music and plainsong whilst the texts cover a massive number of
themes, from autobiographical episodes in the life of the King
and tender tributes to the Virgin Mary to stories reflecting the
harshness and brutality of the time, such as the tale of a man
wrongly punished by having his eyes gouged out miraculously
cured by the Virgin.
Alfonso X "El Sabio" King of Castille, León and
Galicia, as portrayed in his Cantigas de Santa Maria, an
incredible collection of songs and art from the thirteenth
century.
A few words from Simon about his Cantigas de Santa
Maria Suite
Spain and Spanish culture has always
fascinated and moved me in equal measure.
Until 1492, to varying degrees at different
points, Christian, Moorish and Jewish cultures interacted and
merged, particularly during the reign of Alfonso X “El Sabio”,
“the learned”. Alfonso’s political and military endeavours were
not impressive but his cultural legacy is quite remarkable, not
least for the more than 400 Cantigas praising the Virgin
Mary and narrating her miracles, complied under his direction
(many would appear to be composed by him), the largest body of
European songs surviving with musical notation before the year
1300.
There are many reasons why I decided to
arrange and recompose this music for myself as a classical
guitarist to perform with three jazz/world musicians and female
singer, none of them religious.
Principally, the melodies are very
powerful, moving and direct. The notation of the time conveys
only the vocal line and is therefore ripe for transformation,
and the fact that this music has survived and transcends over
seven centuries and an embryonic notation system to inspire
countless people today to perform and record it, the fact that
it lives on, similarly inspires me. I believe that the clearly
intense, obsessive passion and conviction that originally
inspired its composition (even if I do not share the passion for
the object of these convictions) makes it potentially very
powerful, especially in a world where we are surrounded on a
daily basis by music intentionally devoid of these fundamental
qualities. I have a very clear vision of how to transform this
music to create something new and relevant with a basis in the
culture and psyche of the musicians and composers of the
thirteenth century. In other words a merging of mind, spirit and
purpose across seven centuries.
I have already mentioned that Spanish music
fused different cultures and musics to create unique, highly
expressive musical languages and this is a concept that
continues to drive much of what I do. Another recent project of
mine fused Indian classical and Western contemporary classical
music to form a new genre and in this set of Cantigas, which
will be recorded for release, I seek to merge these medieval
melodies with my own harmonic vocabulary rooted in contemporary
classical music, the rhythmic processes of Indian music, the
improvisation skills of jazz, among other of my interests, to
form a new genre, visceral and real, unique to the ensemble.
Musicians playing lute/oud,
fiddle and tuned bells, panels from the
Cantigas de Santa MariaI, 13th century
Musicians playing harps,
pipes and tabors, panels from the
Cantigas de Santa Maria, 13th century
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