Nice Vielle Y’got There, Pilgrim

Back in the day – way back in the day, when there were, like, monks and even non-clergical folk journeying everywhere across the plains of Spain, going from monastery to monastery, and so on – there were no iPods or Walkmans or even boomboxes.

But there was music.

Oh, there was some hella fine music, to be sure, citizen.

As recently-profiled Austinite Owen Egerton – who’s done that whole El Camino de Santiago thing on foot – could probably tell you, there was music fit to lift wandering Medieval souls halfway to the vault, the vault, the vault of heaven.

[Note: Not that Egerton experienced such a thing with his own ears as he walked, of course, the relevant singing and playing having occurred centuries before his soles of vulcanized rubber touched European soil. But perhaps the ginger-haired bon vivant heard faint, ah, echoes, yes? Echoes of glory?]

And it’s just that sort of music – music of the Medieval Pilgrimage in Iberia – that Daniel Johnson’s Texas Early Music Project and guests will be presenting this weekend. With their period instruments and their company of voices and their attention to 1) historical detail and 2) aural beauty that surpasseth all, save, perhaps, the angels themselves.

Just figured you might like to know that, citizen.

Just passing along the good word on the best music in this vale of tears.