Edda; Medieval Myths - A World Premiere Recording!

Iceland is a country that was settled by the Norse explorers hundreds of years before the Norman Conquest of Britain, and half a millennium before Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. The Norse explorations of the North Atlantic took them to Britain, Greenland, and even to the North American continent centuries before the arrival of Columbus. Iceland was settled in the late 800s, with a parliament being established in 930 which helped guide their culture and religion. However, Icelandic culture was never centralised in political or religious terms, and the pagan religion of Norse/Germanic gods and goddesses was a free-form body of stories that could be reinterpreted by communities and clans quite easily.

The epic work Edda, which exists from the thirteenth century in writing in both prose and poetry, is the basis of this disc. These works pre-date the manuscript by many centuries, perhaps even the settlement of Iceland itself. Like many epic works in the ancient world, they were passed down by oral tradition long before being committed to writing. The Eddic poems include heroic poems (think Beowulf) as well as poems about gods and goddesses - it is ironic that the deities in these works are often more 'down-to-earth' and human than are the heroes.

The way in which ancient poems would have been performed is always a matter of debate. There are different ways of thinking about how they should be performed, but in the end, it is guesswork (albeit educated guesswork). Add to this that there is probably no fixed way in which performances were done in the past in any event, and one must rely on instinct for the words, the lyrical quality, and what knowledge we do have of the way in which music and poetry was performed.

The liner notes for this disc have an essay by Benjamin Bagby discussing the recreation of the Eddic performance. This looks a vocal and contextual issues, as well as instrumentation; Elizabeth Glaver adds information on this point.

Sequentia was formed in 1977, and has been dedicated to recreating works of ancient and medieval music, including the work of Hildegard of Bingen, Spanish medieval music, and other major works. They have had an extensive recording, performance and broadcast career.

This particular work is full of mystery and strong tones. The music itself is very simple in structure in many ways, but also gives a rich and full experience. As one reviewer notes, there is a similarity of performance here to plainchant on the continent of Europe from the same time period. The language is a wonder to behold, despite the ambiguity in understanding how Old Icelandic was actually pronounced.

This is a great story, and a great musical treat.

I enjoy listening to Sequentia, I like their sound very much, but even if they satisfy the "experts", I don't take their albums as accurate reflections of how things were performed in olden times, this is simply way too polite. This cd, and the one they did some years ago of Medieval English
song, really get my goat up, they are offering us sterilised, palid husks of what are spirited and powerful songs, and do no justice whatsoever to the hardy generations that passed them down to us.

Now, I'm no expert, but to my thinking, you'll find more reliable renditions of north European Medieval song in the hands of modern folk groups (try early albums by Garmarna, a Swedish folk group, or St. Georges Canzona, or Misericordia, two "early music" groups with more gusto, for starters). Yes, these people are not purists, their influences will be more broad, language has moved on, and the instrumentation is not always going to be authentic, but these songs belong to the people, and evolve with them, breathe and grow, and yet the essence is there, the spirit kept alive.

Meanwhile, Sequentia, and a whole host of other "early music" ensembles, provide us with a shrivelled up corpse in a sealed container, and backed by the "experts", tell us that everyone back then was shrivelled up and lived in sterile jars.

I'd wager it wasn't so.