You'd never know it from the gorgeous packaging, but this is a reissue, the original album having appeared in 1989. The German medieval group Estampie has since gone on to forge a distinctive performance style influenced by modern electronic genres, but at this point it was still playing it relatively straight. Even here, however, the sound was innovative; well in advance of the Spanish musicians who have explored a heavily Arab-influenced sound in medieval secular song, the group employs the tar, saz, and oud and favor ...
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You'd never know it from the gorgeous packaging, but this is a reissue, the original album having appeared in 1989. The German medieval group Estampie has since gone on to forge a distinctive performance style influenced by modern electronic genres, but at this point it was still playing it relatively straight. Even here, however, the sound was innovative; well in advance of the Spanish musicians who have explored a heavily Arab-influenced sound in medieval secular song, the group employs the tar, saz, and oud and favor textures dominated by plucked strings and fairly elaborate improvisation. The "songs of women" billing on the cover does not indicate female composers, although the title work was indeed by twelfth century female troubadour Beatriz de Dia. The songs are not by women but about women, songs of courtly love, written from a woman's point of view. This genre was popular enough to have its own designation all over Western Europe -- cantiga de amigo in Iberia, chanson de femme (or chanson de...
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