Search - Amadis Ensemble :: The Chants of Camino De Santiago [Jade]

This record will transport you into a different world of sound and spirit: simpler, purer, more tranquil and serene. The program consists of chants from the 12th to the 15th centuries and includes several Sephardic songs--some quite dancelike, some rather mournful. Though the melodic range of the chants is naturally very limited, and the prevailing mood is devotional and somber, they have a lot of textural diversity. Some are purely instrumental, others are for one or two unaccompanied voices. When the tenor and bass sing alone, the latter provides a drone to the former's more florid line, or they move in open intervals, alternating between unison and solo. Their duets with the soprano combine unison, conversational give and take, and counterpoint. Most of the chants use a wide variety of vocal and instrumental combinations, with fascinating results. The final song employs the entire group; vigorous, assertive, and celebratory, it keeps adding voices and instruments, becoming increasingly elaborate. The performing group is most admirable. Several singers also play numerous instruments, which include a citole, a cornemuse, a hackbrett simulating a psalterion, a Persian def, and a Syrian rek, in addition to the more familiar vieles and a large variety of flutes and percussion. Among the singers, tenor Hervé Lamy is outstanding. His voice is sweet and velvety, his expressiveness both chaste and intense. The disc's packaging is odd. The booklet gives neither the texts nor any information about the music or the performers. But both the makers of the instruments, which are, of course, modern reproductions of the ancient originals, and the dates when they were made are listed in meticulous detail. --Edith Eisler