Make love, not crusades (digital hd audio + booklet Eng-Ita)

<<Amas e chantas soven>>, love and sing often, this is the advice given by Love to Peirol in the tenso he wrote and in which Love tries to convince him not to go on crusade; adding that “many lovers will depart, weeping, from their ladies”. What did people think of the Crusades? the popes proclaimed them, the monks preached them, knights departed and there were also women who participated, like the patroness of the troubadours Eleanor of Aquitaine. Then there were the merchants, who took advantage of the situation to establish themselves in the markets of the East and increase their profits. But who remained on the other side when someone sailed away? There are songs written to encourage people to travel, but there are also songs recounting us a very different point of view. The Italian Maritime republics played a large role in the Crusades, and a manuscript contains a woman's lament in early Venetian language which is heartbreaking in telling how she sees her house empty after the departure of her husband. Marcabru, in a poem that recalls both the "chanson de toile" and the “pastorela”, rhymes of when he met a woman crying near a fountain, she was cursing King Louis VII of France, promoter of the second crusade, that took her lover away. And even for men farewell was difficult enough to let them wish to stay, such as Chardon de Croisilles sang: <<I am constrained to leave the one I have loved the most in order to serve the Lord God my creator, and yet I belong completely to Love>>.

"Make love, not crusades" by Murmur Mori ensemble avoids giving entirely voice to those who promoted crusades, in order to shed a light on the sources and songs, including some early Italian vernacular lyrics, of those who suffered and waited for Love to return.

TRACKLIST:

I. Walther von der Vogelweide - Nu alrest leb ich mir werde

(13th century) - 4.40 min

II. Anonymous - Lamento della sposa padovana (extract I)

(year 1277) - 3.21 min

III. Marcabru - A la fontana del vergier 

(12th century) - 4.18 min

IV. Thibaut de Champagne - Seigneur sachiez qui or ne sen ira (Instr.)

(13th century) - 2.38 min

V. Rinaldo d'Aquino - Già mai non mi conforto

(13th century) - 8.48 min

VI. Anonymous - Lamento della sposa padovana (extract II)

(year 1277) - 2.26 min

VII. Anonymous - Suspirava una pulcela

(13th century) - 2.33 min

VIII. (Attributed) Richard the Lionheart - Ja nuns hons pris

(13th century) - 5.08 min

IX. Peirol d'Auvergne - Qant Amors trobet partit

(12th century) - 5.30 min

X. Chardon de Croisilles - Li departirs de la douce contree

(13th century) 4.46 min

XI. Guiot de Dijon - Chanterai por mon corage

(13th century) - 4.27 min

TOT: 48.39 min