Search - Carmina Burana Anonymous, Bernhard Landauer, Ensemble Oni Wytars :: Carmina Burana: Medieval Poems and Songs

A feisty little musical riot

Sator | Sydney, Australia | 07/12/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you've ever been even slightly curious as to how Medieval secular music might have sounded but were unsure if it was for you this is a great place to start. At this price Naxos makes musical terra incognita much easier to explore. The results here are an absolute riot and are barrels of fun. There is life, rhythm and colour in abundance - all of which makes it irresistible from start to finish. The only word of warning is that this definitely NOT Gregorian chant and if that is what you want you will be in for a huge shock. The music here is gregarious, bawdy and populated with drunkards and virgins being deflowered. It is really all completely over the top.



As always Michael Posch is to be thoroughly commended for the sheer spontaneity of the musical feast that he unfailingly serves up. Too often music making of Medieval music seems awfully dry and academic - whereas this is way too riotous for that, even though a good deal of musicological research has gone to recreating Medieval performing practice.



The final carrot to go and buy this recording is the fantastic recorded sound. Naxos you have put many a major recording firm to utter shame with this release, who all to frequently demand several times the price for dreadful recordings/transfer - with Virgin Classics being the worst offender. Audiophiles after a miraculous bargain should pounce at the oppurtunity. Soundstaging is glorious, with air around the instruments, balance, detail, focus balanced by some warmth. It is all there for the taking!"

More fine familiar material from Ensemble Unicorn

S. Gustafson | New Albany, IN USA | 03/19/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ensemble Unicorn and Oni Wytars, as I've noted in other reviews here, seem to shine especially on one-line monodic material where the performers must make their own arrangements. This is music tailor made to that approach --- especially since not all of the poems have their own tunes, and those that do have them recorded in hard to read neumes rather than staff notation. Melodies for the poems with no music at all are often borrowed from other period pieces.The arrangements may be too busy for some early music purists, but they are quite entertaining, and the experience of listening to this is more like listening to a pop or folk record than classical music. That makes this recording the most consistently listenable record of the material since Thomas Binkley's versions of twenty years ago. High points of this record are the fine performance of the timely -Ecce torpet probitas- and the duelling fiddles of -Clauso Chronos-. You also get the near-mandatory -Exiit diluculo- and -Tempus est jocundum-."

Medieval Music

Richard S. Chabior | SPencer, MA | 06/18/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Unlike Carl Orff's version of Camina Burana, this one is as close to what the people may have sang back when. It is refreshing and worth while to hear the songs and words instead of being blown out of your seat by "hollywood" stylings"