Edda - Mythen uit Middeleeuws IJsland (1999)

"The Cologne-based Sequentia, specialists in the northern European oral song tradition (and notably Hildegard of Bingen), have worked painstakingly on Icelands great store of rimur the medieval sung poetry, whose strains can still be detected in childrens songs in Reykjavik. Sequentia has applied its research into the performance of rimur to re-creating sung texts from the Elder or Poetic Edda. Of course we don't know how this music really did sound; but when I heard Benjamin Bagby and his colleagues I was compelled by the vigour, eloquence and integrity of their own re-created authenticity. Isolation has ensured that living Icelandic offers pretty good indications for the pronunciation of Old Norse and Bagby has listened with a keen ear. Three 'panels' from the apocalyptic Prophecy of the Sybil, Voluspa, form the real set-pieces of this recital. In between, spirited fiddle pieces are played and Bagby gives a virtuoso 14-minute performance of The Tale of Thrym. More please!" (Hilary Finch, Gramophone)