Customer Reviews

The Rheingold Curse: A Germanic Saga of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
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While I found the musical tone of "Edda: Myths from Medieval Iceland" to be one of the most interesting things I have ever heard, simply due to its sheer difference from all modern sounds and genres of music, as well as from traditional "ethnic" music, the stories told in this CD are more interesting than the stories told in the first EDDA CD, but with the same haunting and otherworldly sound. The first CD set an atmosphere, this one brings you into it with gripping stories. By the end, you'll imagine that you speak icelandic, simply by following along with the liner translations while listening to the music.

This album is pure magic. Since early medieval music is so different from ours it is easy to make it "boring". Not so with The Rheigold Curse sung by Sequentia. They manage to stay true to the original style while still keeping the music dynamic and magical. It really feels like you are transposed to a world where the sword rules and dragons hide in the depths of rivers. For a real outerwordly experience try and listen to it in the darkness of winter - you will not regret it.

This CD is an incredible musical odyssey through the Old Norse version of parts of the Poetic Edda and the Niebelungenlied/Volsunga Saga. The music is intense and beautiful. I also was lucky enough to see this presentation live. Unfortunately the CD does not contain all the music from the live show.

If you're at all interested in Medieval Studies, Norse mythology or Icelandic Sagas, you should definitely pick this up.

Very ambitious project by Sequentia - to re-create early medieval singing of the songs from Edda. Benjamin Bagby chose the songs, which later were used as model for his operas by Wagner. So it is a part of historic memory of many European nations.
Bagby plays the replicated German harp of the VIIth cent.
With him we would see the End of the World (Voluspa) and travel to the times of Attila and his wars with the Goths on the territory of the Eastern Europe (The Second Lay of Hudrun, The Lay of Atli).
There are two ways of listening to this music. You could imagine yourself in time of the Vikings (or Attila) and your thoughts would flow with the singing, playing and accompanied narration by Bagby and Sequentia into that distant time. A kind of meditative listening.
Second way - (though book with the lyrics is included) to buy the book "Edda" with comments, to read it and to understand the meaning of this epic songs. In both cases this record is very impressive. And though we would never be sure that the bards, scopes and scalds sang their songs as mr. Bagby, but I could say: "I beleive!". And "Edda" turns from the old book for the lovers of medieval literature into lively emotional human experience.
I couldn`t say that I listen to this CDs every day, you have to be in the mood to listen to this record, but I`m sure that it is one of the most unusual and interesting releases of the last years.
P.S. In 2006 mr. Bagby recorded DVD with reconstruction of live performance of "Beowulf". Look for website of Benjamin Bagby.

This album is almost exactly like Sequentia's 'Edda' work, only longer and more expensive. If you appreciated that album, then you'll no doubt enjoy this one as well.

The Rheingold Curse has better interludes and very good pacing throughout, but it's rather long, by necessity of course, but still long. I thought that most of the things that I disliked about Edda were minimized in this recording, and that made it a much more consistent album on the whole. The book is, once again, very nice, and gives excellent translations and articles written by Bagby and others.

If you're on the fence, I would suggest getting 'Edda' first and seeing if you like this kind of thing. While I rate the Rheingold Curse slightly higher, it does cost 5x as much, so save yourself some money. If you do end up getting this one first and enjoying it, then pick up 'Edda' as well.

Not only have I heard this record, I also got to see Sequentia perform it at a local community college, a wrenching experience, let me tell you. It was the essence of minimalism, the players remaining seated while being trolleyed forward and back into and out of the spotlight, with the Chorus figure (dressed as a Tiresian hermaphrodite) moving laterally across the front of the stage. The immediate, apocalyptic, geopolitical ramifications left me dumbstruck; without meaning to be arch, I can honestly say that the last time I was so severely affected was the first time I saw the movie TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. There is no way simply listening to the disc could impress as deeply, but it is nevertheless an achievement in itself, and cannot be recommended more highly.