Search - Concentus Lucensis, Albarello :: Lauds on the Life of Jesus

It is hard to draw a definite picture of the medieval dramatic song; although it can be clearly seen from their texts that the laude were widespread in Italy, we do not know how they were performed. Scholars are inclined to think that when the texts of dramatic laude were performed for an audience they were sung rather than recited, in the same way as the more archaic dramatic theater models. The field is therefore restricted to the few laudari with text and music handed down to us, surviving for the most part in two substantial manuscripts, the Laudario di Cortona and the Laudario Magliabechiano. For this recording, songs were selected that included dialogue, and revolved around the life of Christ. The interpretative hypothesis employed here means to recreate the spontaneous spirit of the songs, performing parts of the laudario polyphonically, in the form of discanti, something that is often still done is some Confraternities on the islands of Sardinia and Sicily.