O Virgo Splendens

O Virgo Splendens - Free Adaptation from Llibre Vermell ‪@ThierryZaboitzeff‬ LLIBRE VERMELL revisitat Sandrine Rohrmoser: Voices and percussions Thierry Zaboitzeff : All instruments, composition and arrangements based on 14th-century songs and dances sung by pilgrims on their way to Montserrat to honour a black virgin. (2004 - Archives) Filmed by Hannes Klein at Schauspielhaus Salzburg on April 4th 2004. Logo and additional graphic design by Thierry Moreau There's something mysterious - and miraculous too - in the deep beauty of these songs penned by anonymous composers, collected by monks in the late 14th century before being rescued from a fire in the monastery of Montserrat (Catalonia) in 1811. Ten hymns written in Catalan, Occitan and Latin, both pious and danceable, just because pilgrims were not supposed to fall asleep during night vigils. A few versions of Llibre Vermell have sublimated its mysticism, such as those by Jordi Savall in 1978 and 2013. Here's another, just as penetrating and resolutely contemporary, recorded some twenty years ago during a series of concerts at Salzburg's Schauspielhaus by Thierry Zaboitzeff, in duet with Austrian singer Sandrine Rohrmoser. Then what is the secret of the alchemy that naturally authorizes this musician to make music as distant as that of Llibre Vermell his own? No doubt the eternal nature of these songs echoes his own quest, the one he has given us to survey through a journey spanning more than half a century; a musical path being the expression of a crossing of the light and shadows of time, between rock, electro, contemporary music and classical or baroque influences. A multi-instrumentist and singer, architect of a cosmogony haunted by forces as incarnate as they are cerebral, Thierry Zaboitzeff can once again unfurl his colors to bring about his own fusion at the heart of a “red book” whose co-author he has become. Those who know him will find in this restored recording his own universe, at the crossroads of all those “worried spaces” he pursues with undiminished passion. It's a new invitation: to sing, to dance, to forget for a while the harshness of the world and glimpse its mystery in the contemplation of the infinite. Denis Desassis