I was very amused to read in the current Radio Times, re: the Drew Barrymore Cinderella film, Ever After, that the castle which appears in it is Hautefort in the Dordogne…
Ah, I thought.
Altafort.
Bertran de Born's place.

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Lyrics here.

(x-post to oltramar

A lovely arrangement of L'Amour dont sui espris…

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Stuff the silly stories about Lion-boy, Blondel is superb. The tune was re-used in the Carmina Burana and by Gautier de Coincy.
Lyrics are here.
( Read more... )

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Peirol of the Auvergne debates with Love whether or not to go to Outremer, where the "marques valens e pros" needs more companions!

And here's something for the pub. In Latin.

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I promise to be more attentive to the group next year: 2013 has been a tough year personally, hence not doing a lot here…

Probably the loveliest setting of the Salve, Regina I have ever heard. Ensemble Organum, from the service book used by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in the 3rd quarter of the 12C, which was the template for the Templars. ( Read more... )

As tomorrow is my birthday, here's some music!( Read more... )

The wonderful Troubadours Art Ensemble has brought out a new boxed set in their La Troba collection: La Troba 3 (Boy, am I glad I'm back in gainful employment…!). It includes songs by Raimbaut de Vaqueiras and Peire Vidal, both of whom were associated with the court of Montferrat (Vaqueiras being in-house trobador to the Marquis Boniface, brother ( Read more... )

There's been a recent production of an opera based on the Jaufre Rudel legend, Amour de Loin. The music is by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, the libretto by the Lebanese journalist and poet Amin Maalouf (whose book on the Crusades isn't very good…). For some reason, the Countess's name has been changed to Clémence, instead of Hodierna/ ( Read more... )

As you know, I love Ensemble Organum, who specialise in non-Gregorian/regional ecclesiastical music (on which the Papacy tried to clamp down at various times). ( More about their work: )

I have this soundtrack CD, as I recognised a couple of 12C tunes I know being used in it: Richard I's own Ja nuls om pres, and Guiraut de Bornelh's alba, Reis glorios, verais lums e clartatz (although Rozsa clearly hadn't read the whole lyric of the latter if he thought, as quoted in the sleeve notes, that it was a "Latin hymn", not an Occitan alba ( Read more... )