Credits:

Ogawa Mikako

Description:

The dalsimer, a plucked string instrument of the zither family that spread across the Eurasian continent under various namessuch as cimbalom (Hungary), yangqin (China), santur (India), and hackbrett (Germany). This album, which conveys the soft and elegant tones produced by this instrumentin which metal strings stretched across a wooden box are struck with two small malletsis a rare and valuable recording realized by Mikako Ogawa, one of the worlds few Hackbrett specialists, with the support of renowned early music virtuosos. From Marian hymns found in *The Red Book of Montserrat*a 14th-century manuscript compiled at a monastery near Barcelonato dance pieces from the German Baroque era, the ancient beauty of Western music from the time before it became classical feels fresh and new today.ALMRECORDS/Kojima Recording