"cantigas de Santa Maria"

Maria Morning Star - Cantigas de Santa Maria, Vol. II - The Renaissance Players (1996) {Walsingham Classics WAL8008-2}
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© 1996 Walsingham Classics | WAL 8008-2
Classical / Medieval / Early Music / 13th Century / Spanish

“This cantiga tells how King Alfonso of Castile suffered in Vitoria and had a pain so great that they thought he would die from it. They put upon him a book of the Cantigas de Santa Maria to cure him. [The King recounts :] … I didn't scream nor did I feel any pain at all, but felt well instantly…”. -Cantiga 209, Muito faz grand'erro. Thus King Alfonso X, el Sabio, tells in the first person how he was miraculously cured of a mysterious illness (now thought to have been caused by a tumour of the maxillary antrum) when the Book of Cantigas de Santa Maria made by his scribes was placed upon his frail, ailing body. In this, as in all the cantigas in the Book, Alfonso wished to make it clear to all his subjects, at every level of society, in an accessible language (the poetic Galician-Portuguese vernacular) and a persuasive medium, that divine grace was an everyday reality.

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XX - Alfonso X El Sabio - Cantigas de Santa Maria (1993) {Astrée-Auvidis E 8508}
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© 1993 Auvidis / Astrée | E 8508
Classical / Medieval / Chamber Music

Jordi Savall, once more time, shares with us a beautiful program of instrumentals and chorals pieces from the middle age. Alfons X El Sabio Cantigas are the most popular music pieces about this period, but also really majestic. The sound of this album is really magic. A very good choice for a first approach…

Alfonso X el Sabio - Freiburger Spielleyt - Tales of Miracles (Cantigas de Santa Maria) (1994) {Verlag der Spielleute CD 9307}
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© 1994 Verlag der Spielleute | CD 9307
Classical / Medieval / Neo-Medieval

Tales of Miracles — wonderful and magical stories from the Spanish Middle Ages based on the famous "Cantigas de Santa Maria". A colorful fusion of medieval and contemporary music reveals a distant dream-like world, whoise threatening specters and demons Maria defeats with her miraculous powers. The melting voices with historic, ethnic and electronic instruments imbues the Cantigas with a spirituality that trascends time.

Songs for a Wise King - Cantigas de Santa Maria, Vol. I - The Renaissance Players (1996) {Walsingham Classics WAL8007-2}
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© 1996 Walsingham Classics | WAL 8007-2
Classical / Medieval / Early Music / 13th Century / Spanish

In 13th century Spain, seven hundred years before anyone thought of using the term 'world music', a remarkable king named Alfonso the Wise was creating it. Alfonso X, King of Castile and Leon, filled his courts with the finest poets, musicians, artists and scientists he could find, from all three of the Iberian peninsula's great religions. Christian, Jews and Muslims worked side by side, creating a body of work that included groundbreaking scientific and astronomic treatises, translations of epic poems and scriptures from as far away as India—and some of the earliest and most sophisticated blends of European and Middle Eastern/Arabic music. The greatest of these was the enormous collection of songs in praise of the Virgin Mary now called Cantigas de Santa Maria.

Alfonso X el Sabio - Miracle!: Cantigas de Santa Maria d'Alfonso el Sabio - Ensemble Obsidienne (2007) {Calliope CAL9366}
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© 2007 Calliope / CAL 9366
Classical / Medieval / Early Music

In the thirteenth century, King Alfonso el Sabio (the wise), gathered together in his 'Cantigas de Santa Maria' four hundred songs (cantigas). These mystical, non-liturgical pieces were sung at various festivities, sometimes - as we see from the illuminated manuscripts - accompanied by dancing. Their form, verses with dialogue between texts and instruments, and so on. The 'Cantigas' involve celebration, dancing, storytelling, tales of miracles. The language used is Gallego-Portuguese, the language of lyric poetry at that time in the Iberian Peninsula.

Mirror of Light - Cantigas de Santa Maria, Vol. III - The Renaissance Players (1996) {Walsingham Classics WAL8035-2}
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© 1996 Walsingham Classics | WAL 8035-2
Classical / Medieval / Early Music / 13th Century / Spanish

In order to better understand the continuous turmoil in the life of Alfonso X, and thence to wonder by what miracle he was able to devote so much time and energy to his vast creative-intellectual output, it may be beneficial to step back and consider what sort of man his father was and what was the nature of the problems he inherited on assuming the Castilian crown in 1252.