Legenda Aurea

wykonawcy

La Reverdie

nr katalogowy

A 304

opis

In her excellent presentation to this recording, Livia Caffagni explains : “The Legenda Sanctorum , later called the Legenda Aurea (‘The Golden Legend’), was perhaps the most widely read, heard, paraphrased, recounted and quoted text of the Middle Ages – after the Bible. The blessed Jacopo da Varazze (1228-1298), a Dominican who later became Bishop of Genoa, spent at least fifty years compiling it with the intention of offering the Christian people a ‘history’ which would be the sum of all knowledge concerning the lives of the saints that had been accumulated over the course of the centuries. From this resulted an encyclopaedic work which, doubtless well beyond the hopes of the blessed Jacopo, remained a “best seller” for centuries to come. This is attested to by the thousand Latin manuscripts compiled prior to the end of the 15th century (in comparison, La Divina Commedia numbered nearly 850 over the same period), along with hundreds of manuscript translations in the Italian vernacular, French, Provençal, Catalan, high and low German, Dutch, English, Bohemian, Icelandic and innumerable editions printed throughout Europe after 1470.

In the Legenda , the story of the lives of the saints is organised according to the succession of their feast days during the liturgical year. They could thus be combined with the liturgy so as to contribute to the edification of the faithful, the ‘stories’ exercising a powerful psychological hold on the audience. The work was thus be the ideal complement of a triptych forming the History of Salvation: the History of the chosen race ( Old Testament ); the History of Jesus Christ ( New Testament ) and the History of the new people of God ( Legenda Sanctorum ).

In this vision of history, conceived as an instrument of spiritual growth, the exactitude of chronological facts is of minor importance, if one compares it to the intrinsic spiritual charge of the exemplum : the life of the saint is for the Christian – and not only during the Middle Ages – the document of the real possibility of achieving that imitation of Christ which, even though the desirable fruit of evangelical preaching, nonetheless appears in opposition with the predispositions of human nature.

The Legenda Aurea was read aloud in convent and monastery refectories but used especially by preachers. Their fiery homilies in churches or church squares were followed by an audience reflecting all levels of society, with the same enthusiasm as for the most fascinating events of urban life. Thus, the details of the lives of the saints narrated in the Legenda penetrated deep into the collective imagination and subsequently in all artistic manifestations, in the representative arts and, even more so, in the auditory arts”.

This CD is based on two sources: the well known Cortona codex and the BR 18 in Florence which is far to be so renowned. These manuscripts were already the main sources for the LAUDE DI SANCTA MARIA which LA REVERDIE recorded some five years ago [ARCANA A 34] and with which this new recording constitutes a sort of diptych. But more than a simple acoustic reproduction of a work from the past, LA REVERDIE questions and proposes, using historical, musicological, paleographic, linguistic and organological research, the creation of a new original with an aura which will be its alone. Determining the rules of an “honest” game, LA REVERDIE never disregards a conscious creative goal, first artistic and openly topical.

nośnik

gatunek

Muzyka klasyczna

producent

Arcana

data wydania

28-08-2017

EAN / kod kreskowy

3464858013044

Produkt nagrodzony:

Classica - 'R10'

Diapason: 'Diapason D’or'