Search - Meirav Ben David-Harel :: Yedid Nefesh - Amant de Mon Ãme

Sephardic prayers based on secular songs

Demantius | Nuneaton, UK | 01/31/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the 11th CD in Alpha's Les chants de la terre series, applying early music research to oral traditions or 'world music'. The performers are Meirav Ben David-Harel, song, percussion, chifonie, Yair Harel, song & percussion, Nima Ben David, viola da gamba, and Michele Claude, percussion. (The digipack never describes the four performers as "Trio Harel")



The music is from a wide range of mainly Sephardic sources, from 10th to 16th CE, performed with as much musicality and panache as any classical Sephardic recording I have heard (as good as the Diaspora Sephardi collection by Jordi Savall on Alia Vox).



Presentation is exemplary - full texts in Spanish, Hebrew (with vowel points) and Arabic (romanized), with English and French translations. An exhaustive essay by Sami Sadak of the University of Provence, also with English translation.



ALPHA511 - 3760014195112 - 1 CD Digipack. Total time 55:41 DDD. Recorded in July 2003 in the Chapelle de l'hopital Notre-Dame du Bon Secours, Paris.



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