Looking for Mediaeval Music

[Alatar]

Well, not specifically Mediaeval. I want something with a sort of percussive heartbeat, but that has an older feel. Its for using under the prologue of Romeo and Juliet.


1 Two households, both alike in dignity,
2 In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
3 From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
4 Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
5 From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
6 A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
7 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
8 Do with their death bury their parents' strife.
9 The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,
10 And the continuance of their parents' rage,
11 Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,
12 Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
13 The which if you with patient ears attend,
14 What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

[axordil]

Check out dance music by Michael Praetorius. Contemporary with Will.

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

This probably isn't (or wasn't) what you're looking for, Alatar, but have you seen The Merchant of Venice (2004) starring Al Pacino as Shylock and Jeremy Irons as Antonio? Jocelyn Pook's music, which features German countertenor Andreas Scholl (With wand'ring steps and How sweet the moonlight) and Kiwi pop artist Hayley Westenra (Bridal Ballad) is fantastic! Some of the other pieces on the soundtrack are very different from three I've linked, and are just as brilliant.

After a search I discovered that Ms. Pook has written a piece entitled Romeo & Juliet that appears on her 'Flood' album. I'm not sure, yet, what to think of it. I'll have to listen to it a dozen times or more before deciding.

Praetorius's works are great, Ax, and seem to me to be what Alatar may have been looking for. I really like this one: Volte.