Customer Reviews

Piae Cantiones: Latin Song in Medieval Finland (CD-R)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Retrover gives a highly musical and subtle performance of mostly late medieval songs to Latin words and instrumental pieces, rescued from oblivion in a rare printed collection in the sixteenth century. A few carols will be familiar from Neal's use of the melodies for English carols with his own words. Perhaps it's as well that Retrover does not use the spring carol which we know only too well in a rhythmically mangled version as "Good King Wenceslas". The multinational singers and instrumentalists are all expert and the result a joy to the ear. I've waited a long time for a recording of this music and a fair while for this CD, which was originally released only in Finland and neighbouring countries. I strongly recommend it, for any season of the year.

Before purchasing, I should have noted that this was one of those MP3 CDs that Amazon puts together on demand, so the printing quality on the case is not as nice as real Naxos CDs. Also, despite the numerous Cantiones of this old collection that have yet to see the light of day, this selection has 4 repeat titles "Dies est laetitiae."That is a lot of laetitiae. Also, I was really looking forward to track 10 "Jesus Christus nostra salus" and was slightly disappointed that they chose to record it only as an instrumental. The recordings are good, however, and this is overall a good value.