Anonymous, Llibre Vermell de Montserrat

At the top of the cliff in the Catalan area of northwestern Spain, not really definately not Barcelona, lies the pilgrimage abbey of Montserrat. The Benedictine monks from the abbey are custodians of the miraculous statue, the so-called Dark Virgin of Montserrat. In the Large DARK AGES, the fame from the statue’s wonders spread throughout European countries. Tunes and poetry celebrated the Virgin’s activities of recovery and grace; a number of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Ruler Alfonso X narrate particular wonders. Montserrat therefore became a favorite destination for pilgrimages, as well as the abbey’s monks profited in the increased popularity and traffic. Many of the monks themselves composed and gathered poetry and music to honor and publicize the Dark Virgin. One particular assortment of ten music in the fourteenth hundred years survives in the Llibre vermell de Montserrat (which is known as for the outstanding crimson of the later, nineteenth hundred years cover). The web pages between your Llibre’s vermillion addresses contain extraordinary proof the ethnic mingling that occurred within a middle ages pilgrimage city. Popular dance music rub shoulder blades with “cultivated” polyphonic compositions; Moorish impact is noticeable throughout. The scribes tagged O virgo splendens, the starting piece, a caça, or “chace.” The word, put on three from the Llibre’s parts (Laudemus virginem and Splendens ceptigera will be the others), signifies canonic techniques; rubrics recommend the music could be sung as the two-part or a three-part cannon. Maria matrem likewise shows understanding of the advanced music from the French ars nova. Polorum regina, alternatively, is a circular dance, equivalent in conception towards the French and British carol. An inscription in the manuscript relates the fact that pilgrims prefer to dance throughout their vigils, which piece offers a sacred shop on their behalf; the notation enables a metrical reading, with a straightforward refrain where all of the pilgrims can sign up for. Two of the rest of the parts embody the pilgrims’ ethnic combination in both vocabulary and technique: in the Catalan Los arranged gotxs are Italian echoes, as the Occitan Imperayritz de la ciutat ioyosa prospects to southern France. Advertisement mortem festinamus, the ultimate piece in the Llibre vermell, results towards the dance type, yet its starting refrain immediately proclaims a far more severe subject matter: “We are hastening towards loss of life; let us stop sinning!” This music, the first making it through exemplory case of the literary danse macabre, concludes the pilgrim’s music having a terrifying charm to amend one’s existence.