Ars Moriendi | TRS085
Bastarda are an instrumental Polish trio comprised of clarinet, contrabass clarinet and cello. Their new album, “Ars Moriendi”, released earlier this year in CD format, is a mysteriously minimalist take on certain liturgical compositions and their composers from the medieval ages. It’s time to light the incense, kneel and say your prayers to this appropriately darkly and at times intense soundtrack to the end of life.
“Music in mourning is like a tale out of time’. Thus state the Holy Scriptures (Ecclesiasticus 22:6), suggesting that we fall silent in the face of death. And yet, this biblical admonishment notwithstanding, the passing of medieval and early modern Christians was constantly accompanied by music, from their dying moments to the last rites over their graves. When a Christian felt he was about to die, he would seek the comfort of the Scriptures. He would read excerpts from the Passion of Christ, symbolised here by the chant Vita in ligno moritur [1]. In Commendatio animae, the soul of the dying man was entrusted to God.
Bastarda transfigures this ancient musical ritual: centuries-old chants are fragmented, and the ever-changing counterpoint of early polyphony implodes into minimalism. What is left, is a twenty-first century meditation on death. The ars moriendi, the art of dying well, instructed Christians how to face death and resist the last temptations of the devil. Bastarda’s Ars moriendi does not teach. It is a journey through the paradoxical emotions of the human being, suspended between desperation and hope.
After the rite, those who are left ask themselves ‘Who will give our eyes a fountain of tears?’ (Quis dabit oculis nostris fontem lacrimarum), remembering what is lost. Mourning marks the end, but Bastarda’s interpretation points also at a new beginning of peace and, finally, silence.”
(comments by Antonio Chemotti)
We have ended up having three separate vinyl versions this time around…because we couldn’t help ourselves! All the covers feature the image by Polish artist Stachu Szumski, silkscreened in the San Francisco studio of Morrison Productions in black and gold.
>>The deluxe limited “Box Edition” version of 50 copies comes again in absurdly modified, 50+ year old, hinge lidded classical music boxes, as a few of our other recent vinyl releases have done as well. Each box is covered with the logo image silk-screened onto sheets of antique Japanese bookcloth, and hand outlined in gold oil paint. The edge of each box is hand stamped and titled in gold ink as well. On the back of each box, or inside the box depending on our mood, is a signed and stamped, vintage “Memorial Record” form.
The inside of the box covers are lined with copies of medieval wood block prints, printed on fine art paper, again “illuminated” in gold details. Attached by archival photo corners to each black poly lined sleeve that holds the 180gm black record is a large 11” square, distressed, double sided printed and numbered insert that has been “bloodied”, burnt and spattered with more gold. It includes the track titles and credits, and on the reverse side a full essay by Antonio Chemotti about the band and the inspiration for the music. Behind the sleeved vinyl is a 8” x 10” vellum envelope containing a large hand made gravestone rubbing combining words and details from a pilgrims cemetery in Santa Cruz, and our local Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland California. Tucked in this envelope is a vintage Novena prayer booklet holding 2 sticks of sanctified Catholic Church incense. Also included in each box is an empty, unique and original antique funeral home/mortuary matchbook cover, an old hand colored Catholic saint postcard, and a uniquely dark and original, vintage east European funeral photograph.
>>The “Vintage Jacket Edition” of only 20 numbered copies comes in the form of an original, vintage LP cover from the 50’s…each of which has been cautiously hand wiped away immediately upon printing the silk-screen design. The back of each of these jackets is covered in torn and reassembled 100 year old pages from a 90 year old book on the work of the obscure 15th century printer and illustrator Anton Sorg, each stamped and numbered. Included in each of these is the 180gm record in poly lined sleeve, the large heavy weight double sided insert, a unique and original vintage east European funeral photograph, and as supplies last, one of the aforementioned “Memorial Record” forms.
>>The “Kraft Jacket Edition” comes in an edition of 60 copies. Each of these comes in a black and gold silkscreened, heavy weight recycled paper, Kraft board jacket, hand outlined in gold, and hand stamped on the spine and front. The back of each is hand stamped and numbered as well, and each also comes with the double sided insert, a vintage funeral photograph, the 180gm black record in sleeve..and probably more!
As usual, your copy may or may not be one of the ones pictured, as all are unique.
This release will ship the week of October 25th 2019.
Bastarda:
Paweł Szamburski (clarinet)
Tomasz Pokrzywiński (cello)
Michał Górczyński (contrabass clarinet)
Warsaw based musicians are playing new and original interpretation of medieval and early music. On their first album “Promitat eterno” (Lado ABC / 2017) they recorded songs and motets by Petrus Wilhelmi de Grudencz (1392 – c. 1480). His works found in German, Polish and Czech manuscripts scattered throughout Europe, was completely unknown until very recently. Most of his compositions appeared anonymously, as was common in the Middle Ages. In the 1970s, however, Jaromír Černý, who was studying 15th-century Czech manuscripts, was struck by both the words and music of certain part-songs and motets. All these texts were acrostics, with the initial letters of consecutive words invariably forming the composers name.
Paweł Szamburski (b. 1980) is a musician and composer with close ties to the Warsaw Lado ABC scene. He studied cultural anthropology and musicology at the Warsaw University. Szamburski create or co-create such bands as Bastarda, SzaZa and Ircha Clarinet Quartet.
He perfoms solo, composes music for film, theatre, silent movies, contemporary dance and radio plays.
