[SRB] (Serbian traditional folk) Ensemble Renaissance - Muzika stare Srbije - 2002, APE (image + .cue), lossless

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Ensemble Renaissance / Roots of the Balkan - Music & Songs from old Serbia
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Musical Roots of the Balkan Early Music from old Serbia
The music heritage of old Serbia had been created for centuries on the Balkan soil, which is eternally at the crossroads between the East and the West. That tumultuous, from time immemorial historically seismic and specific geographic area, has been permeated by divers ritual, religious and cultural traditions. This has resulted in unparalleled syntheses of unique beauty and expression. The variegated melodious reliefs, rhythmical patterns and latent harmonic expressions of the music and chants of old Serbia are in themselves a precious, living document on the co-existence of only apparently opposite, but essentially [thus, esthetically!) very close music and spiritual systems. Therein lies both the key to understanding and complete experience of the musical heritage of a long bygone age of the artistic history of the Balkans and thereby of the older European history as well.
Particular value of the collection of songs and dances presented on this CD is their antiquity. Transmitted for ages orally from generation to generation, from the lips of the Old to the memory and singing of the Young, this music has conserved and brought to the present day all wisdom, messages and lessons, actually the very spirit of the ancient ancestors.
It is well known that music always accompanied Serbian people in their everyday activities, as well as that it had a particularly important role in the milestones of individual lives and in annual cycles in the life of the whole patriarchal community. Births, weddings, harvests, journeys, deaths and funeral rites, religious Christian holidays or rituals inherited from the pagan times, work processes (sowing, harvesting), all these significant events unfolded continuously, through the ages, with traditional songs and dances. Gifted folk musicians - singers and dancers - were highly respected and appreciated by the people, and that not only by some specially privileged social status conferred on them, but also because their exquisite skill and fame acquired during their lifetime were talked about many generations after they died.
The ensemble Renaissance has also dedicated a part of their decades-long researches and performances to reconstructing the musical tradition of the old Serbia cultivated on the Balkan soil in the epochs of West European Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque. As the starting premise in their work the ensemble has used all the records of diligent ethno-musicologists and students of Serbian music folklore. The oldest records of Serbian folk melodies do not originate before the first half of the 19th century. Therefore, although these are comparatively »recent« records [100-150 years of age), the ensemble Renaissance, performing for decades early music on old instruments, has included in the interpretation of Serbia's folklore tradition also all the knowledge acquired by Serbian musicology in studying the activities of skomrahs - numerous, but to date completely anonymous medieval musicians on the soil of old Serbia.
Today, like the skomrahs of many centuries ago, the ensemble interprets the original records through their own stylization, endeavouring to preserve as much as possible the authenticity and antiquity of the spirit of this music. To this end, the ensemble is using old folk instruments, represented in pictorial monuments or mentioned in ancient manuscripts, which long ago ceased to be used in the performance of folk music. Music of Old Serbia, featured on this CD, represents only a small fraction of the rich musical treasure of ancient Serbian music. The approach of the ensemble Renaissance in the interpretation of this music is just one of countless individual and potentially creative approaches in the treatment of ancient songs and dances, which have for ages proved their attractiveness both with the listeners and with the performers, who always and again recognize in them impulses for new and different interpretations.
Surviving for centuries in often hard and unfortunate times in the Balkans, music tradition of the old Serbia, mostly like any segment and stratum of artistic ethnic traditions all over the planet, has preserved and brought to the present day a message, which is maybe the most important message for future generations: a message of timelessness, imperishability and unfathomability of the spiritual and esthetic Being of Music Itself. May this CD be just a small contribution to universal efforts made by the musicians of the ensemble Renaissance to reveal and infuse a new breath to little known and so to speak forgotten music worlds of our, musically over-rich planet Earth!
Ensemble RENAISSANCE

It is only rarely that an ensemble can boast that it has a continuous history of over 30 years or that it fills the concert halls wherever it goes without showing any traces of fatigue. Owing to its uninterrupted research investigations and tireless organization of new programs, the Renaissance early music ensemble has maintained freshness and attractiveness with a view to origins and scene.
Renaissance performs music from the earliest written documentation of this art to the early baroque period and appearance of the first operas. In addition to already known European music, the immense and greatly varied program repertoire of the ensemble also encompasses lesser known or entirely unknown music from the East, including the Byzantine legacy, with a special accent on the traditional ethnic music of the Balkans: Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria as well as Cyprus.
Carefully prepared programs and performances in authentic costumes enable Renaissance to engage in effective communication with a wide-ranging public. The ensemble's outstanding musical quality, analytic and precise realization of its repertoire, and excellent knowledge of the musical material please even the most discriminating public, and its superb animation skills, dynamics of motion, spirit and immediacy also delight young people and children.
The Renaissance ensemble has performed widely in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, in concert halls and churches, at festivals, and at colleges, universities, and music schools for youth. During its over 30-year history it has presented more than 2,700 concerts in Finland, Cyprus, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, Portugal, Algeria, Syria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Spain and at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Annaba Youth Festival, Leipzig Bach Society, Berlin Festival, Prague Music Spring, Berlin 750th Anniversary, Rigas Fereos Festival in Athens, Varana Summer Festival, St. Donat Festival of Early Music in Zadar, International Youth Musical Meeting in Zagreb, Hungarian Festival of Early Music, and World Youth Meeting in Paris in T989. And the list could be continued....
The musicians perform on historical instruments and have one of the most complete instrumental inventories in Europe.
Apart from its permanent members, the ensemble expands to include up to eighteen interpreters as the particular program requires. The ensemble makes regular recordings for broadcast on television and radio, participates in theater performances, and has appeared in a number of films.
Special projects characterize the work of the Renaissance ensemble: Byzantine and old Serbian vocal music, music of the old Adriatic, Carnival in Venice, music of the Baroque and Italian Renaissance, Franciscan lauds, Paris in the Renaissance, music of the marketplaces and streets, tavern music, music of the Shakespearean theater, ballads of the troubadours, trouveres, and minnesinger, the journey of Marco Polo (this program, recorded on CD in Germany, was named one of the most successful releases by the music magazine Phono actuell in March/April 1993), a journey to Jerusalem (love poems and entertainments of the crusaders).
Permanent Members
Ljudmila Gross - soprano,
Georges Crujić - shawm, bagpipes, caval, gralla, rauschpfeife, gemshorn, curfal
Ljubomir Dimitrijević - fife, recorders, rauschpfeife, crumhorn, gemshorn, transverse flutes
Dragan Mladjenović - saz, vocal, hurdy-gurdy, wind instruments
Zoran Kostadinović - rebec, vieile, baroque violin Darko Karajic, lute, laud, vihuela, saz, cura, sharquia
Miomir Ristić - viola da gamba, fiddle, wind instruments
Veljko Nikolić - percussion
Discography
No. 1 - Music of Old Serbia [LP &CD)
No. 2 - Music of the Old Adriatic (LP)
No. 3 - Greatest Hits (LP & audio cassette)
No. 4 - Mon Amy (LP)
No. 5 - Hommage a I'Amour (LP & audio cassette)
No. 6 - Vidovdan (audio cassette)
No. 7 - Early Serbian Music (video & audio cassette)
No. 8 - The First Seven Years (1969-76) (audio cassette)
No. 9 - Renaissance in Barcelona (audio cassette)
No. 10 - Marco Polo (CD)
No. 11 - A Journey to Jerusalem (CD)
Nos. 12&13 - Anthology (2 CDs)