Search - Sequentia, Benjamin Bagby, Agnethe Christensen :: The Rheingold Curse: A Germanic Saga of Greed and Revenge from the Medieval Icelandic Edda

The Music of the Lost World

Sergey Lenkov | Mother Russia | 01/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."