Posted in Recommendations on December 12, 2006|
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If you want to hear some real folk religious hymns, Sonific has samples of a couple as performed by Aine Minogue.
“Caoineadh na dTri Muire” (The Keen of the Three Marys) is an old Irish song from the POV of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, as she stood at the foot of the Cross with Mary Salome and Mary Magdalene. Very few keens survive, as they were usually improvised and thought to be extremely unlucky to imitate or repeat in non-funeral situations; but this unusual hymn is an exception.
“A Iosa, B’im Chroise” is the harp tune of an old Irish hymn. This sort of “slow air” is unjustly neglected by most non-Celtic musicians striving to “sound Celtic”.
“Deus Meus” is some kind of setting of the 7th century Latin/Irish hymn “Deus Meus, Adiuva Me”.
The album is full of unusual stuff like that. A few have New Age-y or Enya-style arrangements of Celtic music, which I usually don’t like, but they don’t seem lame (for once), so this album seems worth making an exception. The problem is that the liner notes, although interesting and useful, also contain large helpings of Deep Thoughts. But the selections are so good, and so unusual! Sigh. This is how I ended up with quite a few other albums with annoying liner notes…..
Btw, it seems that Minogue’s holiday albums also have some nice rare material on them. Argh! My poor screaming wallet!
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