Gregorio Paniagua News
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2024-04-23
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2021-02-22 04:49:00
Al Andalus (CD review)
Musique Arabo-Andalouse. Gregorio Paniagua, Atrium Musicae Madrid. Harmonia Mundi HMM 93389.By John J. Puccio First, a bit of history: Al-Andalus is the name of the area of the former Islamic states in Iberia, a domain that at one time occupied most of the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula and a part of southern France and beyond. Arab or Berber rulers controlled these areas at various times between 711 and 1492, although national boundaries changed constantly as conflicts with neighboring Christian countries continued.During the Middle Ages, Al-Andalus became, as the CD booklet notes explain, “a centre of culture and of influence on the rest of mediaeval Europe. At that period Europe had not yet attained a level of civilization comparable with the splendour and extreme sophistication enjoyed by the inhabitants of Southern Spain. Music flourished with particular vigour in Al Andalus, protected by the patronage of the emirs, princes and caliphs, studied by […]
2017-08-23 11:26:00
[…] sequence where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - is another potential victim of the rise of the post-albums. Albums which capture the soundscape that is so important to R. Murray Schafer have always held a particular appeal for me. Among the concept albums that have featured here in the past have been Uri Caine's naughty but nice Wagner E Venezia, Manuel Hernia's transcultural The Whisper of the Orient and Eduardo Paniagua's evocation of the Muslim call to prayer Almuédano . To this list of recommended soundscape albums I am adding Srdjan Beronja's The Sounds of Varanasi. Srdjan Beronja is a Serbian percussionist, musicologist, composer and producer who was born in Novi Sad in 1976. In 2001, he moved to India and studied the Indian tabla in the city of Varanasi with several Indian masters of the instrument. Ten years later he moved to […]
2015-01-16 11:46:00
If it's muck or mysticism, I'm on the side of the mystics
[…] when the three religions of the book co-existed in harmony. A pioneering recording of Mozarabic Chant was made by Ensemble Organum directed by Marcel Pérès for Harmonia Mundi in 1994, and this remains in the catalogue today. But, excellent as it is, the Ensemble Organum interpretation is really too hair shirt to reach a wide audience. So enter a more recent performance by Música Antigua titled Canto Visigótico-Mozárabe. This is masterminded and directed by Eduardo Paniagua whose innovative approach to early music was featured here in Multiculturalism beyond Big Music. Eduardo Paniagua subscribes to the admirable school which says that authentic performances are in many ways a silly tradition, and mixes rigorous scholarship with liberal interpretations. Eduardo Paniagua points to a 12th century account of Mozarbic liturgy that describes how "the sound of the bells filled [the] ears", and, based on this, accompanies two voices singing the chant with not […]
2013-07-13 08:39:00
The joy of exploring musical roads less travelled
[…] Christian Thomas Merton was born in Prades in Cathar country. Recently I walked through Languedoc in the footsteps of Alma Mahler. This journey took me across the foothills of the Pyrenees into Catalonia where Salvador Dail created his anguished and forgotten Cathar opera Être Dieu, and on into Arabo-Andalouse - Moorish Spain. Harmonia Mundi's Musique Arabo-Andalouse - which has never been out of the catalogue since its 1976 release - was recorded by Gregorio Paniagua's Atrium Musicae Madrid and he featured in Multiculturalism beyond big music. Also on Facebook and Twitter. No freebies were used in the preparation of this post. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).