Ludus Danielis - Daniel and the lions (High Resolution Audio)

Cortigiani
Daniel Johnson, David Negron, Frank Nemhauser
Kurt Richards, Douglas Stevens

Paggi
Nicholas Oakes, Timothy Oakes, Sean O-Brien, David Regelin
Damian Stanley, Devin Ratray, Eliot van Buskirk

Musicisti
Grant Herreid (citola, liuto, piffero, tamburello, cennamella)
John Loose (carillon, salterio, nacchere)
Tom Zajac (cornamusa, organetto, cennamella)

Quarte estampie real 11.15

Deuxieme dance
La terche estampie real
L’autrier m’iere levar
La quinte estampie real
Estampie ‘Daniel’

Entry of Belshazzar’s court 7.10
Entry of Belshazzar’s queen 3.19
Entry of Daniel 11.25
Interlude: Belshazzar’s lament 4.09
Entry of Darius’court 4.28
Presentation of Daniel 3.21
Daniel’s accusers 4.31
Daniel is thrown to the Lions 1.18
Visitation of the angel 5.47
Daniel’s salvation and prophesy 4.43
Te Deum 6.46

Conceived, recorded and produced by Giulio Cesare Ricci 
Recorded at Chiesa di Santa Sabina, Roma 
Recording date November 1986
Equipment: valve microphones Neumann U47, U48 mike pre-amplifiers Nagra 

microphone, digital cables Van Den Hul  
The original master recorded with Nagra 4s has been transferred to Pyramix recorder using the dCS A/D and D/A converters.

The originality of the Ludus Danielis 
The Ludus Danielis is part of the Christmas cycle of liturgical dramas. It belongs, that is, to the group of texts which originated as figures to speech, or annotations, of the Christmas religious office, wherein they evolved with specific features of their own, if not as independent spectacles. It appears that the Ludus Danielis was first realized by the young scholari of the Episcopal School of Beauvais around 1140, a time when the western door of Chartres Cathedral was being completed, and Eleanor of Aquitaine was turning her court into a gathering place of Langue d'Oc troubadours and clerici vagantes. Although it did not have the international renown of Paris, Metz, Montpellier, etc., Beauvais was a major cultural center in the XII century and its Episcopal School a hive of artistic activity. As was typical of the period, the organization, preparation and performance of sacred works primarily served an educational purpose - that of making the message of the dogma effectively accessible, by explaining it both visually and acoustically, to the many who were to be won over to the Christian cause and knew no Latin. Beauvais saw the concrete application of the teaching principles which involved authors and performers, masters and students in a operation unmistakably connected with religious workship. The aim was a medieval reconstruction of the original characteristic of Greek classical drama - the logical derivation from the rite - which in this case translates the whole of sacred history into the simplest terms. In its linguistic and historical connotations, the Ludus Danielis falls into the generic category of "liturgical" or para-liturgical drama. There was action, dialogue, a suitable staging and, above all, a fair number of characters played by actors connected with the clergy. The texts, which drew their subjects mainly from the Bible, were preserved in church manuscripts and breviaries. In fact, the chief trait of liturgical drama as opposed to subsequent sacred drama (known variously as Mistère, Miracle play, Sacra Rappresentazione, etc., according to the country) is its close relationship with the liturgy, from which it is derived and of which it adopts the language (Latin), the actors (clerics, even for female roles) the site (church) and the occasion (holy days). In this sense liturgical drama is still a rite, and the medieval man called to see it (the first document in the West date back to the end of the IX and the beginning of the X century) is essentially a believer who in conscious of taking part in a religious observance. Not many examples of liturgical drama have come down to us that took their theme from the Old Testament. Of these, the two most convincing ones were based on the Book of Daniel. They reached an extremely advanced degree of metric variety in their strophic composition and had a splendid effect when performed. The first was the work of the cleric Hilarius, the second the combined effort of the scholari of Beauvais Cathedral. Of the two, the Beauvais version is the only one with the musical part clearly scored on the tetragram, and it is the second version, with its wealth of melody, its variety of rhythm and mode, its color and allegory, that constitutes the Ludus Danielis. The subject-matter is based on well-known episodes from the Book of Daniel in the Vulgate: Belshazzar's magnificent banquet, the mysterious handwriting on the wall, Daniel's interpretation of the words and the reward for his prophecy, the return of the sacred vessels to the temple, Belshazzar's defeat by Darius, Daniel's appointment as Darius' regent, the envious counselors' plot against Daniel, his casting into the lions' den and safe-keeping by the angel, and finally his prophecy of the advent of the Messiah. There is no doubt that even at the time the Ludus Danielis was considered a sumptuous play, presupposing the use of a considerable number of performers and a profusion of objects and symbols taken from the Cathedral treasure. Its spectacular effect is absolutely unique among medieval liturgical dramas, and it seen by many scholars as the point of arrival of a long process of evolution through time. Just around the corner are more complex works that are destined to mark the separation of the dramatic action from liturgical usage, paving the way for the transition towards a new type of medieval theater, still edifying perhaps but no longer: tied to an act of faith.  Luigi Bellingardi