Dato/tid
08.04.2024
20:00 – 21:00
Sted
KoncertKirken
EARLY MONDAY med Amor Céu (FI)
“Mia irmana fremosa – O sister, haste with me to the sea!”
Aino Peltomaa, voice, medieval harp, percussions
Anna-Maaria Oramo, voice, clavisimbalum
Eira Karlson, voice, fiddle
Amor Céu invites you to join the waves of colorful and emotional female-voiced love poetry. Their program is build around the Cantiga d´Amigo, a collection of lyric love poetry from the Iberian Peninsula, dating back to 1200-1300´s. A distinguished feature of these cantigas is that the speaker is always a female; a mother, a daughter, a friend, a bride, a girl, a wife.
The words and themes that are often repeated in the poems are amigo (the one with whom the maiden falls passionately in love), madre (mother), irmanas (friends of the maiden). The songs heard in the concert are the only surviving melodies from the author written to be Martin Codax. Not much is known about his/her life, but very probably (s)he was a touring troubadour, active in the areas of Galicia and Vigo. This valuable manuscript was found in the beginning of 20th century by a bibliophile Pedro Vindel and for that reason the manuscript is called Pergaminho Vindel.
Another central collection of medieval music form the 13th century Iberian peninsula is the Cantigas de Santa Maria, compiled in the court of Alfonso X, King of Léon and Castile (1252-1284). He was an important supporter of the arts and had Christians, Muslims and Jewish in his court to translate latin texts to Castilian, supporting the use of this vernacular language among the intelligentsia. He had a good line of troubadours hired in his court and was very familiar with the Cantiga d´Amigo, very probably composing himself as well. Cantigas de Santa Maria stays to be one of the earliest surviving collections of homophonic vernacular poetry. However the songs are not in Castilian, but in Galician-Portuguese, the ancestor of modern Galician and Portuguese. The use of this troubadour tongue for sacred songs was quite unique since this language was specifically used with love poems (Cantigas d’amigo, Cantigas d’amor).
The Cantigas de Santa Maria includes 420 songs which describe the miracles by Virgin Mary; healing the sick, raising from the death, saving a drowned one, giving fertility, saving a nun who accidentally swallowed a poisonous spider! The songs often begin with an invitation to the listener of the upcoming content and the refrain (called razón by Alfonso) contains the affirmation or the essential truth to be sung. Detailed places and stories are described, there is usually a sinner who has paid a service to Virgin Mary and who then miraculously intervenes.
Two of the most remarkable pilgrimage sites in 13th century Europe were Santiago de Compostela and Santa Maria de Montserrat, from which the latter is situated on a mountain near today’s Barcelona. According to the legend, Virgin Mary performed miracles on the mountain and a monastery was founded in 1025. It was a widely known, vivid cultural center and many of it´s monks had studied at the Universities of Paris or Bologna. One treasure of the monastery is the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, ”The Red book of Montserrat”. Besides liturgical texts it has 10 musical pieces that reflect Catalonian popular culture, Jewish and Arab musical traditions that were very present in the area. The texts of the one or two-voiced pieces are Occitan, Latin and Catalan.
The dynamic pilgrimage sites and monasteries were significant cultural centers of the time and cultural, linguistic and musical influences interchanged. ”Plus bele” form Codex Montpellier represents an example of how vernacular and secular texts and melodic fragments are intertwined. It is based on a Gregorian chant ”Flos fillius”, and the texts describe a beautiful, desirable woman, who is in the end revealed to be Virgin Mary herself.
Love and longing for the amigo far away behind the seas, or the love for the heavenly. Amor Céu invites you to a journey through vernacular and secular female -voiced love!
Amor Céu celebraters female voices from medieval times with their program around the female-voiced lyrical love poetry of the Cantigas de Amigo of Martin Codax.
The Portuguese name of the ensemble Amor Céu literally means “Love Heaven” and refers to a loved-one, a friend or companion, a loved-one far away (Amor seu) or heavenly love.
Aino Peltomaa is a Finnish singer and musician, performing widely with medieval, renaissance, improvised and contemporary music. Peltomaa collaborates actively with musicians and artist from different genres and performs regularly in Finland and abroad. Her innovative projects combine elements from early music, folk music and jazz. Peltomaa´s album ”UT” by her Ensemble Gamut! was chosen as one of the best classical music albums of the year 2021 by YLE, The National Finnish Broadcasting company. It received ”The early music achievement of the year” -prize, and was chosen as one of the best progressive music albums of 2020 by Jez Rowden/The Progressive Aspect. Accordingly it has been featured in German, Finnish and Belgian major radio channels. Her other recent album ÆR for her trio Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola was described by The Guardian accordingly: “ÆR (Fuga Libera | Outhere Music is an album by Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola, an unorthodox Dutch/Finnish trio for voice, piano and viola da gamba, which takes medieval hymns and transforms them into quizzical, drone-based experimental miniatures.” It was chosen as the album of the week by the French Musiq3 radio station, and has received praising reviews internationally. Peltomaa leads and co-leads groups such as: Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola, Ensemble Gamut! Amor Céu, Harmony of the Spheres, ´k:amos, Sufira and has recorded for labels such as Outhere Music, Eclipse Music and Aspen Edities. She works in the Helsinki Chamber Choir and holds retreats that combine gregorian chant, yoga and meditation. Master of Art in Music, Master of Art in Psychology. www.ainopeltomaa.com
Anna-Maaria Oramo is specialized in early music as a singer, performing baroque repertoire as a soloist and an ensemble singer. Especially performing medieval repertoire she often accompanies herself with a medieval style harpsichord. As a harpsichord player Oramo is a regular member of the internationally renowed Helsinki Baroque orchestra. She has also led the Finnish baroque orchestra and several other early music groups. Oramo has also performed with dozens of other orchestral and chamber ensembles and artists across Europe, including Parisian Orfeo 55, Ensemble Matheus and Capriccio stravagante. Oramo has equally premiered contemporary Finnish harpsichord music and performed neoclassical works for harspichord. Oramo’s soloist career as a harpsichord player has been active since 2004 in form of recitals and in Finland, Scandinavia and Central Europe, and she is a regular soloist for harpsichord concertos. Oramo has made ensemble radio-and tv-recordings for the Finnish radio and ARTE. She has won a Diapason d’Or prize with her latest ensemble recording, and her solo recording with Antonio Soler’s harpsichord sonatas for Alba records got excellent international reviews. Anna-Maaria Oramo studied harpsichord and singing at the University of Arts Helsinki and at the CNSM de Paris. She was a harpsichord student of Pierre Hantaï, among others, and she has attended voice master classes of Evelyn Tubb and Susanne Rydén among others. Oramo has taught at the University of Arts Helsinki Early Music department and at master classes for harpsichord, chamber music and voice. She has completed her artistic doctoral studies in 2017, in which she focused on vocal influences in 17th century French harpsichord playing traditions.
Eira Karlson is Finnish violinist, medieval fiddle player and singer. She is a member of many significant Finnish music groups such as medieval ensemble Oliphant, Sufira, Helsinki chamber choir and a pioneer Arabic music ensemble of Finland, Al Teslim. She has studied Arabic maqams and melodic ornamentation with her father (lutenist, lecturer) Leif Karlson to retrieve musical connections between old Arabic and European mediterranean monodic music aesthetics. In the group Oliphant they have performed and recorded four albums of European medieval music, mostly trouver songs. All albums were internationally noticed and praised, one of them, ”Deus ad un turnei enpris” (2000) was nominated as an album of a year in major Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.
BILLETTER: 120 DKK / Studerende: 80 DKK
EARLY MONDAY støttes af Statens Kunstfond, Københavns Kommune, William Demant Fonden og Augustinus Fonden.