Information from Marc Lewon:
"Neidhart - A Minnesinger and his 'Vale of Tears' is the first complete recording of the Frankfurt Fragment using both the exact music, as well as text, of the manuscript source. Gaps in the manuscript were filled in stylistically. The result is a "Neidhart" which differs considerably from the usual recordings (which usually use the 15th century transmissions of his melodies), and which emphasizes the courtly aspects of his art. After all, his speciality lay in turning around the motives of classical minnesang, particularly in his "winter songs", creating a strong irony within the texts rather than a burlesque form. Leones does not try to make peasant music out of courtly minnesang, but tries to present Neidhart as the "slightly different" minnesinger. One could say it is only a shift of perspective rather than a shift of paradigm. Last but not least, it was the melodies of this early fragment and the source itself which led the ensemble to its interpretation."
New Minnesinger CD--the Frankfurt Neidhart fragment:http://www.leones.de/cd_neidhart.html Texts and translations at http://www.naxos.com/sharedfiles/PDF/8.572449_sungtext.pdf#
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