Al-Ándalus music

With this program we have wanted to portray, through music, the musical panorama of the Iberian Peninsula, with special interest in the coexistence of three great cultures to the south of it between the 7th and 12th centuries: the Arabs, the Jews (called Sephardim) and Christians.

The three contributed to the creation of a great heterogeneous culture in the south of the Peninsula, which gradually spread to the rest of the territory. This dialogue between the three cultures is clearly evidenced in architecture and painting and also in music. The Christians, with their Cantigas de loor a la Virgen, introduced rhythms more typical of music from North Africa into their melodies. The Arabs, for their part, took sounds already existing in the Peninsula and seasoned them with new instruments such as the oud (a type of lute, played with a pick) and an infinity of percussion instruments. The Jews created long songs (called romances) where they recounted stories and adventures that occurred in those times, composed in the Ladino language (or Judeo-Spanish), a dialectal variety of the Romance language – which was spoken in the Peninsula before the Arab invasion. –, very close to our current Castilian, and which has survived to this day.

PROGRAM

Cantiga de Santa Maria 1- Des oge mais quer eu trobar

Cantiga de Santa María 144 – Con razon é d´averen gran pavor

Códice de las Huelgas (s. XIV) – Plange Castella misera

Códice de las Huelgas – Conditor Kyrie 

Romancero sefardí de Marruecos – Hija ya te veo grande

Romancero sefardí de Marruecos – La doncella guerrera 

Romancero Sefardí de Marruecos – Levantóse el conde Niño 

Twichia – Nuba asbahan 

Trad. Armenia – Zurni Tringi 

Zidane – Meçaddar