What Was She Doing: The Mediaeval Baebes and "Maiden in the Mor Lay"

Today's random tune, Maiden in the Mor Lay, is performed by The Mediaeval Baebes. The Mediaeval Baebes began in 1996 when a group of friends led by Katherine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden broke into a North London cemetery and sang a capella in flowing white robes and leaf garlands. They soon became an ensemble, and their first album, Salva Nos, shot to number two on the classical charts. The group has since had many incarnations. They sing in an array of obscure and ancient languages, and have placed three albums in the top ten of the classical charts and participated in the BBC's television series The Virgin Queen. Maiden in the Mor Lay is from their 2000 CD Undrentide.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medi%C3%A6val_B%C3%A6bes

Ugly Things Doing the Boogaloo: The Mediaeval Baebes and "Dance of the Trolls"

Today's random tune, Dance of the Trolls, is performed by The Mediaeval Baebes. The Mediaeval Baebes began in 1996 when a group of friends led by Katherine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden broke into a North London cemetery and sang a capella in flowing white robes and leaf garlands. They soon became an ensemble, and their first album, Salva Nos, shot to number two on the classical charts. The group has since had many incarnations. They sing in an array of obscure and ancient languages, and have placed three albums in the top ten of the classical charts and participated in the BBC's television series The Virgin Queen. Dance of the Trolls is from their 2000 CD Undrentide.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medi%C3%A6val_B%C3%A6bes

Look Under Bridges: The Mediaeval Baebes and "Dance of the Trolls"

Today's random tune is by the Mediaeval Baebes. The Mediaeval Baebes began in 1996 when a group of friends led by Katherine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden broke into a North London cemetery and sang a capella in flowing white robes and leaf garlands. They soon became an ensemble, and their first album, Salva Nos, shot to number two on the classical charts. It not only are they very talented, they are also very beautiful women. The group has since had many incarnations. They sing in an array of obscure and ancient languages, and have placed three albums in the top ten of the classical charts and participated in the BBC's television series The Virgin Queen. This song, Dance of the Trolls, is from their 2000 CD Undrentide.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Love in Spring: The Mediaeval Baebes and "Averil"

Today's random tune is called Averil and is performed by the Mediaeval Baebes. The Mediaeval Baebes began in 1996 when a group of friends led by Katherine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden broke into a North London cemetery and sang a capella in flowing white robes and leaf garlands. They soon became an ensemble, and their first album, Salva Nos, shot to number two on the classical charts. The group has since had many incarnations. They sing in an array of obscure and ancient languages, and have placed three albums in the top ten of the classical charts and participated in the BBC's television series The Virgin Queen. Averil is from their 2000 CD Undrentide and is a spring love song sung in Middle English.

Love, True Love: The Mediaeval Baebes and "E Volentieri"

Hello, and welcome to today's random tune, E Volentieri by the Mediaeval Baebes. The Mediaeval Baebes began in 1996 when a group of friends led by Katherine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden broke into a North London cemetery and sang a capella in flowing white robes and leaf garlands. They soon became an ensemble, and their first album, Salva Nos, shot to number two on the classical charts. It didn't hurt that they were all beautiful and very talented. The group has since had many incarnations. They sing in an array of obscure and ancient languages, and have placed three albums in the top ten of the classical charts and participated in the BBC's television series The Virgin Queen. E Volentieri is from their 2000 CD Undrentide, and tells the happiness of a woman who has found her true love.

Middle English: Mediaeval Baebes and "Besse Bunting"

Back in the day, when I was studying as an English major in college, I really enjoyed my literature class that focused on works in Middle English.  I can still recite, in Middle English, the opening to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  You know, the one that starts "Whan in Aprille the shoures soote, the draocht of March had perced to the rote..."  Or something like that.  It was an exciting time for English.  The Normans had invaded from France and conquered the island in 1066, French replaced Old Saxon English at court, and even though the common folk still spoke Old English in whatever regional dialects they had, French words started to infiltrate.  By the time we get to Chaucer, who lived from the mid to late 14th century, English more closely resembled what we speak today, though the pronunciations of words still retained elements of the Old English.

For me, reading in Middle English was almost like reading in another language, but one where things were mostly recognizable.  I had read some bits of Old English, which may have well been a foreign language, but Middle English was very doable.  I could, even without notes, understand most of what Chaucer and other Middle English authors were trying to convey but it was foreign enough to really make me think if that word or phrase really meant this or that.  And the literature was good!  Chaucer in particular is very funny - alternating between serious themes and slapstick that included bawdy, raunchy humor and fart jokes.

When I stumbled upon the Mediaeval Baebes some years ago, it was fun to hear some of these works sung.  They didn't sing Chaucer, at least not that I'm aware, but songs and poems from that era.  And it was fun to realize that I could still understand them.  And you probably can too!  Take these lyrics from the song:

In Aprell and in May
When hartes be all mery
Besse Bunting, the millaris may
Withe lippes so red as chery
She cast in hir remembrance
To passe hir time in daliance
And to leve hir thought driery
Right womanly arayd
In a peticote of whit
She was nothing dismayd
Hir countenance was full light

In this time of our fall, it reminds us of spring as it captures a snapshot of a maid with full red lips happy and clothed in a "peticote of whit" with a countenance full of light in the months of April and May. 

This is the territory of the Mediaeval Baebes as today's song Besse Bunting illustrates. The group started in 1996 when a group of friends led by Katherine Blake of Miranda Sex Garden broke into a North London cemetery and sang in flowing white robes and leaf garlands. They soon became a group, and their first album, Salva Nos, shot to number two on the classical charts. It didn't hurt that they were all beautiful and very talented. The group has since had many incarnations. They sing in an array of obscure and ancient languages, and have placed three albums in the top ten of the classical charts and participated in the BBC's television series The Virgin Queen. Besse Bunting is from their 2000 CD Undrentide.

Going Mediaeval: The Mediaeval Baebes and "Quan Vey la Lauzeta"

Space and time are a funny thing, especially when they intersect and intermingle. Today's song, Quan Vey la Lauzeta by The Mediaeval Baebes, is an example of how global music can bend the rules of space-time as well as anything else in the world.

A French song from the middle ages, it is sung in mediaeval French. The lyrics are sung from the perspective of a person who has lost his love and still burns with desire for her. For an example of how music transcends time and space, yesterday's song by Ebo Taylor of Ghana, Love and Death, explores a similar theme - how loving can lead to pain and broken-heartedness. Here we see a similar theme from almost a thousand years ago in a culture and world vastly different.

When I see the lark beating

Its wings for joy against the sun's rays,

Until it forgets to fly and allows itself to fall

For the sweetness that goes to its heart,

Alas! such envy comes over me

Of those I see filled with happiness

I marvel that my heart

Does not melt from desire

Alas, how much I thought I knew about love

And how little I really know.

For I cannot keep myself from loving

Her from whom I will gain nothing.

She has taken all my heart, my soul,

Herself and all the world.

And when she left, she left me nothing

But desire and a longing heart.

I have not had control over myself

Or belonged to myself from the hour

When she let me gaze into her eyes -

In a mirror that pleases me so much.

Mirror, since I saw myself reflected in you

Deep sighs have been slaying me.

Translation found at lyricsmode.com

Formed in 1996 when a group of friends broke into a North London cemetery and sang together in flowing white gowns and ivy garlands, the Mediaeval Baebes were conceived by Katharine Blake of the band Miranda Sex Garden and initially was made up of members of that band and other women with a love for mediaeval music. Their music consists of mediaeval poetry set to original music and sung in a variety of languages from the time period - French, Italian, Middle English, Spanish, Latin and regional or forgotten languages. Sometimes their sound is expressly traditional and performed with mediaeval instruments, and at other times modern instrumentation and electronic sounds are blended in with traditional harmonies. As such, they are not an "authentic" mediaeval group but interpreters that stretch bounds through creativity. They have toured extensively throughout Europe, Canada and the US, and have performed in Lilith Fair. It can be found on their album Undrentide (2000) and also on their 2003 holiday album Mistletoe and Wine.