|
|
 |
CD Review
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Sing Out!, CD Review >>
Any album that accurately depicts its conceptual theme in its music gets a plus in my book. It's tricky, though, when striving to depict the sounds of ancient culture. Archaeological and musical imagination both come into play. SAVAE's (San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble) Ancient Echoes makes a worthy stab at its Music from the Time of Jesus and Jerusalem's Second Temple. Working from ideas of common melodic centers identified by musicologist Abraham Zvi Idelsohn, SAVAE uses modern reproductions of ancient instruments that have been well identified through archaeology and other documentation to achieve a sound plausibly like the original. Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian modes are used to express moods that are essentially religious and quasi-spiritual. SAVAE's is a reach worth making. Still, I've noticed that after thirty years working around Middle East archaeology, my view is that much more of the ancient music was akin to what is heard around the Bedouin campfire or village wedding rather than what I consider anachronistic projections. In my mind's eye, the ancient world "rocked," so to speak, with rhythm and dance and energy. What Jesus may have heard was, I suspect, quite different from what is depicted on Ancient Echoes. These remain fine and interesting compositions, but mine is a different view of the ancient Middle East. Different, but not probably correct. So engage the debate and consider Ancient Echoes and its interpretation of ancient Jerusalem. I only wish there were more such efforts.
04/01/04
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
