Les Voix Bulgares (Groupe Bulgarka Jr 3 + 1)
Missa Primi Toni de Pier Luigi da Palestrina

THE REVIEW

With my face close to her beautiful legs, to those feet I adore, I look at the sky from the window and wonder what has become of happiness. With eyes wide open in the perfect cerulean of early evening, it's a minimal yet absolute revelation to realize that, in this human form, I will not attain the purity I crave. We dress in silence, we leave. The tourists in Piazza San Marco are like remnants I cannot rid myself of, but the Bulgarian voices follow the evolutions of the Kyrie like gulls' wings follow the asperities of the air, soaring up, higher, and down, beating or gliding. They lift my impossible questions and answer with their frank, strange timbres, heritage of an intermediate age between the beginning of the world and the current perturbatio magna.

The voices of the women color Palestrina's figures, too august to be relevant in this era, with the cross-stitch of village embroidery, with the stains of ancient sweat and the darkness of nature's unknowable hard core. The vivid nuances of their tradition may sound laughable, yes, ridiculous as a naked man is ridiculous, but dignified as a naked man can express a vulnerable dignity. Sister to the more bizarre “Lambarena” (also reviewed on DeBaser) and presented with the same exocentric and scattered graphics, this Mass greatly benefits from the sporadic intervention of some instruments and the occasional emphasis lent by discreet ethnic percussion. The contrast between the women's voices and that of Ivan Lantos, conductor, arranger, and performer, provides the necessary variety.

Like a balm, towards the song on my torment, and the voices speak to me of God and my mother, scenting me of grass and fresh milk, showing me that it is a rough hand, worn by water, thickened by work and smelling a bit of onion, that will open the door to paradise for me. Their lack of grace reflects my imperfection and their harmonies sing the thirst I have for another dimension. We walk hand in hand. In the silent alleys of early night, the water laps and resounds, making the black silhouettes of the gondolas chained to the mooring posts quiver and groan. And I, like them. Freedom, freedom for angelic souls trapped in a man's body!