Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Following LP Hartley's dictum that the past is a foreign country I have placed this release under the heading of World music. If the prospect of spending an hour listening to bagpipes, duduks, rebecs, bendirs, and the like does not get your toes tapping then you had best look away. But if you want a guided tour across the varied cultures of the Mediterranean of the Middle Ages this is a splendid place to start. We start with a Kyrie from the Christian-Arabic tradition of Lebanon, move to Italy to hear songs of praise but songs that were sung by pilgrims rather than by the choir. We then get some folk music by Yunus Emre from 13th century Turkey who wrote in Turkish rather than using the Persian or Arabic of the educated. Then from Spain we get traditional Sephardic Jewish songs, Andalusian music from the Muslim south and more praise from Christian Catalonia in the north. Like most good folk music this is fun to hear. The texts are supplied but one has to visit the Naxos website to read translations.

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