FROM THE CD...

    The name GOLIARDS comes from an Old French word (possibly meaning "gluttons") for a class of itinerant entertainers who possessed some education in Latin and who were often rewarded in food and lodging. The members of The Goliards incorporate varied techniques of period performance practice and improvisation to bring this music to life.
    The instruments are replicas of ones used in Europe during the Middle Ages. Some are well known, such as the psaltery, guitarras and flutes. Others are heard more rarely such as the Frisian deer bone flute and a reproduction of the brass strung fifteenth century Scottish Lamont harp.
    This album includes music from the Carmina Burana, a manuscript of songs in Latin attributed to the goliards of the thirteenth century. The selection represents three categories of song found in the manuscript: love, social criticism and self indulgence. Tempus Est Iocundum is a crying, dying love song such as a  goliard might sing of the lady he desires. Celum Non Animum (here played instrumentally) is the melody of a moral complaint. In Taberna is a song "in the tavern" celebrating the rowdy scene of bottomless drinking, careless words, and disastrous gambling.
    Another source for the Goliards' music comes from Las Cantigas de Santa Maria, a collection of songs commissioned around 1260 by Alfonso X the Wise, King of Castile and Leon. This collection is well-known as one of the best representatives of thirteenth century secular music. This text is particularly valuable for its pictures of period instruments such as the guitarra latinas. The settings of the Cantigas reflect in part the Moorish source of much of the music and poetry in Spain. This is especially clear in the arrangement of Cantiga #1, Des Oge Mais Quereu Trobar.
    The thirteenth-century collection is rounded out by the songs and dances from different parts of Europe, including the Italian dance Trotto (c. 1300) and two English songs. The first of the English songs, Miri It Is, laments the coming of winter and is followed by the lively polyphonic Sumer Is Icumen In, celebrating the coming of summer.
    Pieces from a later date includes La Bionda Treccia by the Florentine master Francesco Landini, presented here as a basse danse, a typical dance form of the fifteenth century. L'Homme Arme is a melody which was given many forms during the fifteenth century, the great age of mercenary companies. Its words warn of the coming of the "armed man".
    One of the more unusual sources is a piece inscribed on piece of slate recovered from a churchyard in County Louth, Ireland dated between 1400 and 1450. The slate was probably used in schooling, and one of the schoolmasters may have inscribed this melody (perhaps in preparation for transferring is to a less permanent manuscript form!). Opinions differ on it arrangement. Our version is an arrangement by Ann Heymann with improvisations by the performer (used here by permission of Clairseach Music).
    Finally, we include one purely improvisatory piece featuring a bone flute, a re-creation in deer bone of a type of instrument which was widespread in northern Europe between 500 and 1000 CE. The aliquot arrangement of the holes in the instrument produces a musical scale most suitable to this early era.


CONTENTS
1. Se Ome Fezer de Grado (CSM #207)  2:39
2. L'Homme Arme  3:32
3. Trotto 1:29
4. Non Sofre Santa Maria (CSM #159) 6:30
5. Tempus Est Iocundum (Carmina Burana #179) 5:29
6. Improvisations on a Bone Flute 3:17
7. Miri It Is 1:57
8. Sumer Is Icumen In 1:54
9. La Bionda Treccia Basse Danse 1:52
10. Des Oge Mais Quereu (CSM #1) 9:01
11. Celum Non Animum (Carmina Burana #15) 1:26
12. Music From a Smarmore Slate 1:29
13. In Taberna (Carmina Burana #196) 6:34



Track 12 C Clairseach Music, Winthrop, MN. Used with permission.
All other music C P 2000, The Goliards, Boethius Music, San Diego, CA.
Engineering by Harry Castle. Recorded at CRCA, University of California (SD).
Mastered by 9West Mastering, Framingham, MA.
Cover photography by Azusa Kato. 
Manufactured by Artist Development Associates, Inc. Framingham, MA.



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