Frauenlob (Heinrich von Meissen, ca. 1260-1318)

The Celestial Woman / Frauenlobs Leich, oder der Guldin Fluegel, zu latin: Cantica Canticorum

CD (total time 62:55)

Recorded in March 1990 in the church of St. Osdag / Mandelsloh (D)

Released after digital restoration and remastering 2000 by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi / BMG Classics (05472773092) in co-production with WDR Köln

Booklet 57 pp.

 

Barbara Thornton wrote in 1987: ‘Frauenlob’s lengthy praise-song to the Celestial Woman is a masterpiece of late medieval poetry, couched in the evocative and erudite language of Minnedienst (the service of courtly love) and of the Biblical visionaries’. This project, which began as a workshop in 1985 and later became a major music-theater project commissioned by the Alte Oper Frankfurt, was the product of Barbara Thornton’s intellectual curiosity and poetic sensibility. It was finally recorded in 1990, but due to a problem with the analogue tapes the editing proved impossible and it was abandoned. Only in 1999, after Barbara’s tragic death, could the old tapes be re-mastered and the CD released. Women’s and men’s vocal ensembles are accompanied by two gothic harps (Bagby & Cheryl Fulton).