Iacobus Magnus [Import]

1. Portico

2. Logo Camino Branco

3. ¿Onde Vai Aquel Romeiro?

4. Per Loca Maritima

5. No Primeiro Milladoiro

6. Noite Estrelecida

7. No Cabo da Viaxe

Tracks:

Portico
Logo Camino Branco
Onde Vai Aquel Romeiro?
Per Loca Maritima
No Primeiro Milladoiro
Noite Estrelecida
No Cabo da Viaxe

Customer Reviews:

Feel the Pilgrims Way to Santiago........2004-10-26

Have you ever heard about the Pilgrims Way to Santiago? I's a journey that has been made around Europe both walking or riding a horse since the Middle Age. Pilgrims walked to Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) to get their sins forgiven, in an act of contrition. That was the way many European Catholics left their old life behind and begun a new one.
This doesn't have a Christian root, but a Celtic one.
Spanish Celts that populated North Western coasts of Spain on the 6th century before Christ believed in the forces of nature, animism. They saw every single day the Sun "dying" on Cape Finisterre, but rising again with new power by the following morning. They believed the same would happen to their soul by going there. That's how the "way of the stars" (by following the Milky Way) begun.
This recording and performance by Galician band Milladoiro relates with music this magical journey.
The track Pórtico means the undiscovered, the unknown for the bold pilgrim traveller.
Un longo camiño branco (a long white way) has two main ideas. One is the Milky Way pilgrims followed to get to Santiago de Compostela. The second one is both the forests, trees and loneliness the Pigrim feels at the very begining of the journey. It begins with a zanfoña intro, an unsual and Celtic string instrument, mostly used as rythmic, but seldom for soloing. It's kind of a very small (no larger than 60 centimetres) piano with a handle you have to turn to make the strings sound.
On the following themes, "our pilgrim" meets another pilgrims (as it uses happen in actual life) so they walk the journey together, share experiences and relate the reasons that made them walk to Santiago to get "La Compostela".
The high point of the album is No cabo da viaxe (at the end of the journey), a very uplifting and magnificient piece of music for the arrival to Santiago and the end of the ritual at Santiago's Cathedral.
I've worked in Galicia as a tour guide (though I actually live right ar the opposite side of the Iberian Peninsula) for eight years, and used this recording countless of times to get my passengers inmersed in the esence of this magical land and journey. I thing Milladoiro and me got it most of the times.
I really love and recommend this CD.