Lupercalia - Florilegium

Lupercalia - Florilegium
Label: Equilibrium Music – EQM005
Format: CD, Album
Country: Portugal
Released: 2004
Style: Modern Classical, Neofolk

In the finest Italian Neo-Classical Medieval/Gothic Italian tradition, Lupercalia's second album blends together Eastern and European influences in an alchemical creation produced by top-notch musicianship and a strong soprano voice.

"Florilegium" is a Latin word meaning a 'collection of script', a 'literary anthology'. This second album of the duo LUPERCALIA was born with a change of line-up, when the soprano singer Claudia Florio joined Riccardo Prencipe, the founding member of the project.

Riccardo, a skilled multi-instrumentalist, who handles classical guitar, orchestral synth and dulcimer, is also the person responsible for the arrangements on the album, put together with the intention of giving birth to a soundtrack for a movie that exists only in his own imagination. Said soundtrack is further enhanced by orchestration performed by a real string quartet and by the impressive work of solo violinist Gianluca Uccio.

Claudia's bold delivery and the Latin lyrics used contribute to the wide canvas of moods and emotions portrayed on "Florilegium", a collection of elaborate and complex tracks where Arabic flavoured melodies clash headfirst into Medieval inspired Neo-Classical compositions, drawing into a single soundscape various elements otherwise alien to each other.

An ancient, and often hazy and surreal, aura haunts "Florilegium" - the perfect result from the combination between Riccardo's medieval art studies and Claudia's alchemical teachings, applied to the inspiration found in various old monuments and traditional melodies (such as the XII century pilgrim's song that they have recreated for this recording).