Ensemble Organum - Chant Mozarabe - Cathedrale de Tolede (15th century) /Ensemble Organum * Peres

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Free Music Notes for Chant Mozarabe - Cathedrale de Tolede (15th century) /Ensemble Organum * Peres

Free Music Review: The Latin Mass meets the Arab Moors
Hit: 5 Stars

The Mozarabic Rite, which survives in the Spanish cathedrals of Toledo and Salamanca alone, is a sumptuous feast for the ears and senses. Combining the immortal Latin phraseology of the Mass and its various parts, the Mozarabic tradition colors them with a temperament totally unique. Diverging from the unadorned, simple, appropriately named plain-chant of the Gregorian tradition, the Mozarabic formula incorporates Arab musical influences to the most Christian of events, the sacrifice of the Mass and holy communion.

Peres' Ensemble Organum does a head-dizzying job of making the melismatas (long variations and note changes on one vowel or sound) breathlessly exciting to listen to. Its apparent at once that this music is singular among the world's traditions, and deserves to be heard by more people. It is a masterful recording, done in Toledo's Capilla Mozarabe (Mozarabic Chapel) in the Cathedral, and even without the visual stimulation of the church, the music alone with the magnificent acoustics transports the listener 1,000 years back to days when the Christian Mozarabes developed a rite all their own amidst Islamic controlled Moorish Spain. This disc should be of interest to any sociologist or historian of Spain and especially Spain of the Mediaeval Age. The political and social confrontations of the two cultures - European Christian and Arabic Muslim - produce an exotic result that we may enjoy today.

The music is first-rate, but if another reason is needed, it is the rarity of this type of recording. A low-priced, excellent disc of this repertoire is, quite simply, impossible to find elsewhere. You may find a track on perhaps one or two other chronological collections of western liturgical music, but no other complete recording exists devoted wholly to the style. Marcel Peres is known for his exhaustive research into authenticity and his drive to accurately record liturgical rites as they were really heard in their heyday - and in this instance he performs admirably. Participate in the Mass of the Mozarabic people and enjoy an experience that will undoubtedly highlight the cultural connection between east and west and may also spark an interest in further exploration of the rite and its times!

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