Album :Montserrat Figueras - Ninna Nanna 1450 - 2002 Berceuses - Lullabies - Nanas - WiegenliederPerformers :
Montserrat Figueras - voice
Paul Badura-Skoda - piano
Xavier Diaz-Latorre - baroque guitar, renaissance guitar, romantic guitar
Driss El Maloumi - ud
Pedro Estevan - santur, pandero
Marc Hantai - renaissance transverse flute, baroque transverse flute
Andrew Lawrence-King - arpa doppia
Pedro Memelsdorff - recorders
Begona Olavide - psaltery
Dimitris Psonis - santur, bells
Arianna Savall - triple harp
Jordi Savall - soprano viola da gamba, bass viola da gamba, rebab
Sergi Casademunt - tenor viola da gamba
Imke David, Lorenz Duftschmid, Sophie Watillon, Philippe Pierlot - bass viola da gamba
Melodies :
01 - Anon. Portugal - Cancao de emballar - Jose embala o menino
02 - Anon. England - Lullaby - My little sweet darling
03 - Anon. Greece - Lullaby - Koimnesou kaidemeno mou
04 - Anon. Sepharad Morocco - Ladino lullaby - Nani, nani
05 - Anon. - Berber - Amazigh lullaby
06 - William Byrd - Lullaby - Come, pretty babe
07 - Tarquinio Merula - Hor ch'e tempo di dormire
08 - Anon. Alicante - Mareta, mareta no'm faces plorar
09 - Johann Friedrich Reichardt - Dors mon enfant
10 - Moussorgski - Children's room - With a doll
11 - Anon. Israel - Hebrew lullaby - Noumi noumi yaldati
12 - Arvo Part - Rojdestvenskaia Kolibelnaia
13 - Max Reger - Maria Wiegenlied -Maria sitzl am Rosenhag
14 - Manuel de Falla - Nana - Duermete, nino, duerme
15 - Darius Milhaud - Hebrew lullaby - Dors, dors
16 - Federico Garcia Lorca - Nana de Sevilla - Este galapaguito
17 - Arvo Part - Estonian lullaby - Kuus, kuus kallike
18 - Anon. Catalan - Canco de Bressol - La mare de Deu
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Driss el-Maloumi was born in Agadir, Morocco in 1970. He went on to study Arab literature at university and also attended the National Musical School of Rabat from 1992-4. As well as Eastern and Western influences, he also incorporated tribal Berber oud playing into his compositions.
Ninna Nanna- :- Lullabies by Monstserrat figueras : From the moment a baby is born, lullabies are a mother's indispensable ally in soothing her child for whom everything in the big, wide world in new and frightening. The baby recognizes in the song his mother's voice, her presence and her expression. The intimacy of the moment creates a space rich in ancestral symbols, in which words and music create a bond of pure emotion and truth. It is in this space that the child experiences his first dialogue, his first story, his first contact with the teachings of tradition, experience and culture, which over time build into an essential part of our collective memory.
Whoever sings a lullaby is moved by a desire to give of their very best, which in itself is an expression of love, and so the child begins to experience the essence of life.Montserrat Figueras–Nina Nanna artist's introduction
Figueras' words constitute one of the best distillations in pure emotional terms of the meaning and purpose of the children's lullaby as a musical form.
One of my favorite songs is Nani, Nani, a Berber lullaby from Morocco. Figueras uses her most sprightly vocal cadence to convey the lively melody of a song whose lyrics are quite mournful :
I met my brother, Sleep
And he asked me:
'What do you carry on your back?'
The moon is very sad.
The moon is very sad.
I asked her:
'Where is happiness?'
And she answered:
'Happiness is with others.'
I carried the moon on my back
I carried the moon on my back
And I walked and wept.
'Moon, you are hungry,
You are sleepy,
All of nature shivers with cold.'
I met Sleep,
I met Sleep,
And he asked me
What I was carrying on my back.
I answered that I carried
Nothing but the moon.
And he said:
'Rock her to sleep, rock her to sleep.
The following Sephardic lullaby (from pre-1492 Spain, but first collected later in Morocco) is actually a song about marital infidelity cleverly disguised as a lullaby:
Lullaby, lullaby
Hush little child.
Mam's little boy
Will grow up tall.
Go to sleep my sweetheart,
Go to sleep my sweetheart,
Sleep, apple of my eye.
Your daddy is coming
And his spirits are high.
Open up, good wife,
Open up, good wife,
Open the door,For I come home weary
From ploughing the fields.
I will not open up.
I will not open up.
For you are not weary.
I know that you come
From another new love.
She is no more lovely
She is no more lovely
Nor worthier than I,
And the jewels that she wore
Are no better than mine.
