一九九四年初冬，年輕的 Christopher Gordon 在天壇寂靜的柏園裏背誦 Edgar Allen Poe 的長詩 The Raven，聽到激昂処，我大爲傾倒。
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.
These pieces emerged from the keys of a piano. Still affected by the powerful emotion of the encounter, and the exhasustion which followed the recording of “Thimar”. I set the oud aside for a few months, something that had never happened to me before. It was as though the music came from there, from the spaces created by that pause. As though it was the very expression of that lack.
…The piano was the main character, the sole protagonist. It was only later on that the oud came in. It joined the piano gradually, discreetly at first, then it assumed its place. It was a long time, on the other hand, before the idea of integrating the accordion came into my head, whereas it seems obvious to me now. It’s like this music’s inner song.
…A tempo passed on to me by the movement of a tree I could see from my window, swaying gently in the breeze.
Thomas Binkley，1932-1995，魯特琴師和早期音樂學者，1964年領德國慕尼黑早期音樂組 Studio der Fruehen Musik (Early Music Quartet) 錄製了一輯《布蘭詩歌》，摒棄了歌劇弦管，清簡樸素，始終是我最愛。
Tempus transit gelidum
mundus renovatur,
verque redit floridum,
forma rebus datur.
avis modulatur,
modulans letatur
lucidior
et lenior
aeriam serenatur;
iam florea,
iam frondea
silva comis densatur.
Ludunt super gramina
virgines decore,
quarum nova carmina
dulci sonant ore.
annuunt favore
voluchres canore,
favent et odore
telllus picta flore.
cor igitur
et scingitur
et tangitur amore,
virginitues et avibus
strepentibus sonore.
Tendit modo recia
puer pharetratus;
cui deorum curia
prebet famulatus,
cuius dominatus
nimium est latus,
per hunc triumphatus
sum et sauciatus:
pugnaveram
et fueram
in primis reluctatus,
sed iterum
per puerum
sum veneri prostatus.
Unam, huius vulnere
saucius, amavi,
quam sub firmo federe
michi copulavi.
fidem, quam iuravi,
numquam violavi;
rei tam suavi
totum me dicavi
quam dulcia
sunt basia
puelle!
iam gustavi:
nec cinnanum
et balsamum
esset tam dulce favi!
In the early 1960s early-music specialists greatly concerned about the details of the melodies: the ambiguity of right notes versus wrong notes was regarded as being similar to the ambiguity that exists between fact and fiction. At that time we did not easily accept as we do now, that there could be multiple versions of a piece of music, each with equal artistic merit and historical credibility. There was no clear understanding regarding the details of instruments and their playing techniques, so important in devising an improvisatory performance style. Indeed, very little was actually known about medieval instruments. No one performing medieval music at that time was willing to trust the performance paradigms of the Middle Ages, everyone employed instruments from more recent times and applied modern “quality control” to performance standards, believing that it was more virtuous to make a beautiful sound (whatever that may be) than to select interesting notes to play. Although an important original source for historical performance was readily available, we did not recognize it: I am thinking of the whole complex of medieval rhetoric. At that time we were just beginning to understand to what extend the characteristics of an instrument condition the tonal picture. When we stopped projecting Renaissance musical characteristics back into the Middle Ages we made a great leap forward: our new models were found in selected practices from South-East Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, music based upon monophony and instrumental applications growing out of a serious aesthetic theory which in very general terms could be applied to Western music. We never directly imitated Eastern music, but passed what we had learned through what might be termed a “Western filter” in an attempt to recreate the lost art of medieval instrumental performance.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand, with wand’ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.
