CANÇONS DE LA CATALUNYA MIL·LENÀRIA
Planys & Llegendes

Reference: AVSA9881

• Montserrat Figueras
• La Capella Reial de Catalunya
• Jordi Savall

Every nation’s music is a reflection of the spirit of its identity, which starts off being individual, but over time is shaped into an image of a unique collective cultural space. All music transmitted and preserved through the oral tradition is the result of a happy survival, followed by a long process of selection and synthesis. Unlike certain Oriental cultures, which have evolved chiefly in the context of an oral tradition, in the West only those types of music commonly referred to as traditional or popular have survived as a result of this unwritten means of transmission.

“Song is the essence of popular art.”
Joan Amades

The musical heritage of the thousand-year-old land of Catalonia is composed of an extraordinary body of both cultivated and popular music, a part of which is preserved in manuscript or printed sources from the 9th to the 19th centuries, while another part has been preserved by oral tradition. In our earlier recordings we have focussed largely on the former: Canços de Trobayritz (1978), El Cant de la Sibil·la (the Song of the Sibyl in Catalonia, Majorca, Valencia, Galicia, Castille, Occitania, Provence, etc.) (1988-2010), El Llibre Vermell de Montserrat (1979), music from the Montecassino (2001) and the Duke of Calabria (1996) Songbooks, the Ensaladas of Mateu Flecha (1987), the Cançons and Fantasias of Lluís de Milà (1995), the Masses of Joan Cererols (1988), the Fantasias de Joan Cabanilles (1998), the arias and operas of Vicent Martín y Soler (1991), and the songs of Ferran Sor (1991). In this recording (which brings together works recorded in 1988, 1990, 2002 and 2004) we present some of the most beautiful songs from this intangible heritage. We have selected eleven outstanding melodies, including examples of the most beautiful and representative laments, legends and lullabies, adapting them in new musical versions. The majority are performed by Montserrat Figueras, with the collaboration of Francesc Garrigosa (in Comte Arnau), Arianna Savall (in Mareta and El cant dels Aucells), Ferran Savall (in El cant dels Aucells), and, finally, with La Capella Reial de Catalunya (in Els Segadors), as well as a few other pieces performed as instrumental versions by the soloists of Hespèrion XX.

+ information in the CD booklet

JORDI SAVALL
Bellaterra, February, 2011

Translated by Jacqueline Minett