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Label:
  Marc Aurel Edition - http://www.aurel.de/
Serial:
  MA 20016 (2 discs)
Title:
  Edda - The Rheingold Curse - Sequentia
Description:
  Edda - The Rheingold Curse

Sequentia
Track listing:
  Total time: 89:40
Genre:
  Classical
Content:
  Stereo/Multichannel
Media:
  Hybrid
Recording type:
  DSD
Recording info:
 

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Related titles: 2


 
Reviews: 1

Review by LC October 2, 2004 (4 of 4 found this review helpful)
Performance:   Sonics:    
Review: Stereo/Multichannel SA-CD

Audio Systems:
Stereo – Sony ES, Art Audio, Meadowlark, Cardas
Multichannel – Denon, Marantz, Bryston, Paradigm Reference (HT system)


Music/Performance:

Wagnerians take note! If you want to fully appreciate Wagner’s masterwork Der Ring des Nibelungen, or even its major German sources, you need to hear The Rheingold Curse.

After their highly acclaimed series of Hildegard von Bingen recordings, the medieval ensemble Sequentia turned their attention to the reconstruction of Old Norse poetry. They made one recording mostly of poems about the Norse gods, and then, under the direction of Benjamin Bagby, worked out a staged production of the Rheingold Curse saga, upon which this recording is based. The historical/musicological scholarship behind these projects is immense, as was the challenge of evoking in a wholly convincing manner this surreal world of myth and history whose origins lie in the brutal 5th century struggles of the Burgundians and Huns. The main source is the small 13th century manuscript called the Codex Regius, Iceland’s greatest cultural treasure. Bagby selected and edited material from this manuscript to produce a quasi-historical tale, framed by the eerie, slow motion “Prophecy of the Seeress,” to fit into 90 minutes.

Sequentia is one male (Bagby) and two female voices plus sparse instrumental accompaniment. Everything – every breath, every syllable, every instrument – sounds utterly ancient and utterly authentic. The musical content, which ranges from brief passages of roughly what a modern listener would think of as “music” (singing with instruments) to rhythmic narration supported by droning or strumming, is all educated/inspired guesswork. Reconstruction of the pronunciation, in particular, required great effort, along with the assistance of a noted Icelandic philologist, Heimir Pálsson, who contributes an informative essay to the 182(!) page booklet. In general, the whole project availed itself of every scrap of evidence in any form that had any bearing on the reconstruction of Old Norse bardic performance, including a wide range of musical history and traditions, archaeology, and archive recordings of rural Icelandic bards who preserved elements of the centuries old “rimur” singing, or sung oral poetry. The instruments used include a swan’s bone flute, an elk skin drum, a fiddle reconstructed from an 11th century depiction, and Bagby’s own lyre, a copy of an instrument recovered from a 7th century Alemannic grave. A fascinating account of the group’s musical detective work is related by Bagby in one of the two essays he contributes to the booklet.

Having enjoyed the previous Sequentia recording of the Eddas, and having had the great pleasure of attending a performance of Bagby’s concert version of Beowulf when my Early Music society presented him, I had high expectations for The Rheingold Curse. High though they were, they were surpassed by this recording. A warning: there is almost no point at all in listening to samples of this on-line to determine whether you’ll like it. You may be intrigued by, but you are not likely to really enjoy, 30-second clips of this with no text to follow. Possibly even more than with Wagner, you need to understand what’s being said, and you need to loose yourself in it for the duration (although this requires some concentration). Bagby’s dramatic sense and expressive delivery are like nothing you’ve ever heard in opera, and the women’s voices entwine with eerie motion and dissonance, especially in the “Prophecy of the Seeress,” which opens with the most hair-raising cry I believe I’ve ever heard in a recording. There are a few other instances of such wrenching vocals, such as Brynhild’s deranged laugh in the “Short Poem about Sigurd,” where the starkness of the whole sound-world gives the voice an uncanny weight. The climax of the saga, before the final part of the Prophecy, is the 13 minute “Lay of Atli” (i.e. Attila, King of the Huns). As anyone familiar with the Middle High German epic The Nibelungenlied will know, the violence of the other poems pales in comparison to the blood-drenched conclusion, a story of deceit, betrayal, slaughter, revenge and cannibalism. Sequentia’s performance is gripping, and its first and only use of percussion totally exhilarating.


Sonics:

The Rheingold Curse was not recorded by Marc Aurel Edition. Philips did the DSD stereo and multichannel, using dCS gear. The result is what I’ve come to expect from Philips: quite good, though not quite great. The recording is amply good enough to capture the mood, nuance and impact in full. Though based on a performance version, there are no extraneous noises suggesting superfluous physical action; it is a clean studio sound. And yet it does convey much of the excitement of a live performance, as I remember it from Beowulf, and as the wild photographs of the stage production depict. The acoustics are effective but noncommittal. It doesn’t really sound like anywhere in particular. This sonic neutrality is perfect for the phantasmagoric tale itself, and for a performance that is in part a performance of the Eddas and in part a performance of a performance, as it were, the essence of the material being the tradition of oral poetry, something only fixed in a written version centuries after its origins and reconstructed in full centuries after that. The swan’s bone flute is piercing, and the droning of the 4-sting fiddle is effectively diffuse. The drum, when it eventually comes, has a surprising punch to it. Voice and lyre seem well balanced for the most part, and in any case realistic. The recording does lack the last bit of immediacy I would have hoped for with these vivid, pure sounds emerging from the mists.

I discussed audio and SA-CD with Bagby over lunch on the day of his Beowulf performance. In addition to being a very nice guy who has many more interesting things to talk about than audio, he is clearly enthusiastic about multichannel and was happy that The Rheingold Curse had been captured in surround sound. I have only listened to portions of this recording in multichannel, but the advantages seemed to be what you would expect for a small ensemble of voices and ancient instruments: a subtle enhancement of depth and presence.


Summary:

Highly recommended to anyone who is interested in ancient music or Wagnerian drama, and who is willing to concentrate on booklet texts. An utterly convincing musical/dramatic creation, pretty much guaranteed to be unlike anything else in your collection.

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