VA - Laudes: Doulce Mémoire (2009)

In this CD, early music ensemble Doulce Mémoire, founded in 1990 by Denis Raisin Dadre, turns its attention to the music of the Christian and Muslim worlds around the time of the Renaissance. The repertoire is, for the most part, as musical expressions of faith as sung and played by untrained devotees, rather than the more complex "official" music used for worship in churches and mosques. In the West, these consisted largely of laudes, hymns that could be easily learned and sung by almost anyone. The music from the East that's represented here comes from Persia. It uses texts by thirteenth century mystic Rumi, sung by a soloist and accompanied by a chorus and instruments that provide an ostinato over which the melody is improvised. Iranian singer Taghi Akhbari performs Rumi's verses with passion and abandon, and instrumentalist Nader Aghakhani and members of Doulce Mémoire provide a spirited accompaniment that's mesmerizing in its insistent repetitions. The laudes are accompanied and performed by either a soloist or a small vocal ensemble. Some have the simplicity, repetitive structures, and directness of folk song, but some have an astonishing, unpredictable wildness not usually associated with Western religious music. In his notes, Dadre writes that his research showed unexpected correlations between the popular devotion of the Christian and Muslim worlds, and these performances play up the universality of ecstatic religious experience. The results are certainly bracing, even thrilling, and offer a perspective on early music performance that's rarely encountered. The unfamiliarity of the repertoire, both Eastern and Western, and the visceral dynamism of the performances, make this a CD that should be of interest to any fan of early music.