Murmur Mori
Carmina
This album by Murmur Mori represents a creative reconstruction of medieval music based on neumi, the adiastematic notation symbols used between the 9th and 11th centuries from which modern musical notation developed.As Silvia Kuro explains in the booklet, the neumes traced over the texts of songs served as a mnemonic aid for singers who already knew the melodies through oral transmission. Reconstructing music from these symbols requires creativity and leads one to reflect on the oral nature of the repertoire, the European contexts of dissemination and the evolution of notation.Davide Daolmi, an important scholar of the Middle Ages, emphasises in his essay how listening to medieval music serves to 'see' the Middle Ages, confirming an image already constructed through readings, art, cinema and other modern sources. Since we are dealing with such a remote past, about which we know little, any reconstruction is legitimately influenced by imagination, and no note can be considered absolutely authentic.The album is the result of extensive documentary research that supports the band's excellent musical ability. The booklet includes three original essays by Daolmi, Volpe and Kuro that elaborate on the context and musical content of the recording, representing a true journey through time to the music of a thousand years ago.