Ringing Ring: Ancient Stones

Now here's something you don't hear every day. A Japanese band on a French label playing an instrumental mix of renaissance court songs and baroque chamber music. Presumably fans of Gryphon (yes, the krumhorn makes an appearance on the last track!) or Amazing Blondel, they include in their compilation such well known folk themes as "The Lark in the Clear Air" and "My Lord Willoughby".

Starting off with a couple of stately processional dances, a pavane and a gaillarde, the album takes its subtle flutes, recorder, harp, viola da gamba, lute, theorbe, vihuela and other old courtly instruments on a trip around Europe in the middle of the last millennium. French, English, Spanish and Irish compositions predominate, traditional ones or taken from 16th and 17th century composers such as English lute player/composer John Dowland, French Viol player/composer Marin Marais and Josquin des Prez, an earlier Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer. The ubiquitous Greensleeves theme makes its appearance on the 1865 Christmas carol, "What Child Is This?". Jan Akkerman's Delitae Musicae is also on here as well as the gentle Irish jig, The Butterfly.

The whole affair is very delicate, accurately and prettily performed with the occasional verse of song delivered in perfect English diction by Nozomi Yamamoto.

Track Listing
1. Pavane
2. Gaillarde
3. The Lark In The Clear Air
4. My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home
5. Never Weather-Beaten Saile
6. Canarie
7. La Reveuse
8. Two William Davises
9. Con Que La Lavare
10. L'Arabesque
11. The Butterfly
12. Delitae Musicae
13. Suite R-Moll - Allemand Courant Saraband Aria Gigue
14. Allemande - Tripla
15. What Child Is This?
16. Mille Regretz
17. Divisions Upon An Italian Ground
18. Jouissance Vous Donnerai
19. Les Bouffons

Added: July 7th 2007
Reviewer: Richard Barnes
Score:
Related Link: Musea Records
Hits: 3228
Language: english

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