A Celebration Of Woman

Like many of the offerings from Jordi Savall's Alia Vox label, this is a lavishly produced concept album by his wife Montserrat Figueras entitled Lux Feminae. It takes music from the Middle Ages through to the Renaissance ( 900 - 1600 ) that pertains to the light of woman. There are seven aspects of womanhod that are considered, from the sacred to the sensual and from Christianity, Judaism and Islam ( a familiar theme of the Savall family )as well as ancient mythology. The disk follows that hybrid of early music and world music and the several talented performers appearing reflect this. here are contributions from such as Pierre Hamon on flutes, Andrew Lawrence-King on harp, Rolf Lislevand on lute and guitar, Driss El Maloumi on oud and Jordi Savall himself on viola da gamba. Montserrat Figueras's soprano is ideally suited to this repertoire with a light ethereal touch and she is occasionally augmented by a fellow soprano in her daughter Arianna and by mezzo Begona Olavide, contralto Laurence Bonnal and another soprano Tina Aagaard. Many of the songs featured are anonymous, others by little known names from Spanish or Moorish traditions and the disk is bookended by two glorious extracts from the Codex de las Huelgas.