Скачайте изображение (превью) выбрав качество

320x180 480x360 640x480 1280x720

Ensemble: Stef Conner, Hanna Marti
Album: Riddle Songs
Video: MS Junius 11, XI secolo

•
“No songs in Old English have survived from the period in which the language was originally used. And yet everything we know of Anglo-Saxon culture – as preserved in written texts or rediscovered by archaeologists – presents a compelling, if tantalisingly incomplete, picture of a society in which the creative impulse was central. For Stef, this incompleteness is not an obstacle but a challenge to rise to feats of imaginative daring which are also acts of informed historical sympathy. RS is a concept album with a difference: a personal vision of a world just out of reach. Its music and its stories, its seasons and its creatures are addressed or conjured up in hymns, spells, and that most Anglo-Saxon of poetic forms – the riddle. Stef’s settings draw on English folksong, medieval music scholarship and a range of unlikelier inspirations to make something entirely her own. […]

“Originally, Riddle Songs was (and still is!) Stef’s concept album, released on Delphian (2020). Although she conceived the album as a solo project, featuring her choral compositions in Old English alongside solo works, Stef was so inspired by her strong creative affinity with the brilliant medieval singer, harpist and composer Hanna Marti (who she came to know through Ben Bagby and Sequentia) that she reinvented the album to showcase this new collaboration. With Covid-19 raging, and an album release concert rendered impossible, Stef and Hanna looked for alternative ways to promote album. The result was a series of short, simple, sometimes not entirely serious “riddeos”, i.e. riddle videos, which they published on Youtube. The riddeos became a weekly ritual, which also helped Hanna and Stef to keep hold of some courage and joy in creative play during the difficult pandemic lockdown period.” […]

Here is some of the information posted on Stef Conner's site regarding "Riddle Songs".
Stef Conner and Hanna Marti have two of the most beautiful female voices in existence: their singing can be as impetuous as a valkyrie ride or as delicate as that of nymphs, without forgetting the strong spirit of irony and sarcasm with which they often have fun in presenting their repertoire, as can easily be seen from the YouTube videos (riddeos) mentioned above.
To give you an idea of ​​the beauty and charisma of their singing, I recommend you watch the concert “Words of Power: Charms, Riddles and Elegies of the Medieval Northlands (8th–11th centuries)” by Sequentia ensemble, which can be viewed on their website at this link: .
In “Riddle Songs”, in addition to the 11th century Rhenish composition “Caute Cane” and choral compositions composed by Conner on Old English texts, we find a compendium of ancient lyrics such as “Cædmon's Hymn”, a hymn composed in Old English too, according to legend, by an illiterate cowherd who miraculously picked up a harp and began to play it with extreme mastery without ever having done so before.

Concerning the video: I thought that for Old English riddles nothing lent itself better than the enigmatic "knots" typical of Northern miniature art.
The ones in the video are excerpts from the Cædmon manuscript, one of the four main codices of Old English literature. Dated to the year one thousand, it is preserved in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. The name of the manuscript derives from the opinion that the poems it contains were the work of the Anglo-Saxon poet Cædmon who died ca. in 680. From the date of its first publication, dating back to 1655 by Francesco Giunio, the manuscript has been called “MS Junius 11”.
•
1 Rune Poem 1: Torch
2 Fire
3 Flint
4 Caute Cane
5 Hall-joy
6 Rune Poem 2: Day
7 Worldstead
8 Caedmon's Hymn
9 Sainte Marie - St Godric Of Finchale
10 Rune Poem 3: Earth
11 Seed Spell
12 Sky Lights
13 Rune Poem 4: Stars
14 Flight
15 Swan Lament - Anon.
16 Night-bard
17 Song-pack
18 Tide-mother
19 Ice
20 Rune Poem 5: Water
•
Voice, Harp - Hanna Marti
Voice, Lyre - Stef Conner
Choir dir. - Jonathan Brigg
•
Buy:

🌻 The monetization of this channel is disabled to offer the highest possible listening quality. Please support the channel with a free donation: or
•
➳ Don't forget to also add yourself to the Medieval Music Whatsapp group, so you don't miss a single update about medieval music: no silly chats and your phone number will not be viewable by me or by any other community participant.

#musicamedievale #earlymusic #medievalmusic #oldenglish

Чтобы скачать видео "Riddle Songs, old english medieval lyrics in music - Stef Conner, Hanna Marti" передвинте ползунок вправо