Music for Alfonso the Wise by redoubtable English period instrument ensemble the Dufay Collective is not a collection of usual suspect Cantigas de Santa Maria, but attempts to re-create the lost heritage of the secular music that surrounded Alfonso X's court during his reign. Utilizing instruments reconstructed from miniatures, paintings, and other iconography dating from Alfonso's time, the Dufay Collective relies on music found within the Cantigas, manuscript sources outside it, remaining old musical practices still held over in "world music," and its own inventiveness to create an album that nonetheless smacks of authenticity. Never satisfied to perform scholarly transcriptions of old music on rebuilt instruments, the Dufay Collective literally "jams" on the music, bringing out the essence of a working thirteenth century musician's routines in addition to realizing what the variably notated sources seem to tell us.
As usual with the Dufay Collective, Music for Alfonso the Wise is very intelligently sequenced, really consisting of two programs, the first being a set of 11 dances, most of which blend seamlessly into one another. After sending up a magnificent racket during Non soffre Santa Maria, soprano Vivian Ellis performs a radiantly transparent rendering of Martin Codax's song cycle Cantigas de amigo. The Dufay Collective's accompaniment naturally is a bit more restrained here than in the more raucous dances, and provides a texture of support to Ellis that is, in itself, serenely beautiful. The disc ends with Ai ondas que eu vun veer, sung by Ellis alone, bringing the disc from the banging clatter of its center to a close that is almost a whisper.
With Music for Alfonso the Wise, the Dufay Collective embarks on a new collaboration with Harmonia Mundi. One wonders why the Dufay Collective hasn't hooked up with Harmonia before, as the association seems particularly well suited and of mutual accord. With any luck, this new alliance will bring forward a more regular slate of issues than we have seen in the last several years. Whatever the future may bring for the Dufay Collective, Music for Alfonso the Wise is a "five-star" effort all the way around and back.
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