Cantigas de Amigo in the 13th century

September 12, Monday, 8 pm, Franciscan Monastery Church, Trakų g. 9/1

Vivabiancaluna Biffi – voice and viola d’arco (Italy / France)

The astoundingly diverse performer Vivabiancaluna Biffi initially studied modern cello, but after discovering early music has become completely devoted to it. Today she performs as an instrumentalist and a singer, creating an extraordinarily intimate and emotional world around herself. “At the start of my adventure in mediaeval music, as an enthusiastic but ignorant student, I believed that monodic music was too simple and not very interesting”, she says, though today her intriguing programs recreate forgotten pages from music history. This time it was the Cantigas de amigo of 13th-century Galician mediaeval minstrel Martín Codax, discovered in the so-called Pergaminho Vindel document, that caught her attention. The intricately poetic Galician verses convey intense emotions, while the loneliness encountered in Cantigas de Amigo speaks to the waves of the ocean, always ready to listen.