Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares

Extraordinary voices echo from the Balkans’ past, blending their timeless beauty with the sounds of today

At the foot of mount Latemar, with an extraordinary view of the Pale di San Martino and the entire Lagorai range, Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares will evoke even stronger emotions than those we have come to know through their records or their contribution to the music of renowned artists such as Kate Bush, Paul Simon, Elio e le Storie Tese.

“According to an ancient legend,” writes Giuseppe D’Amato, “when God divided the land among the peoples, he gave the Bulgarians a small corner of paradise, with wild and unspoilt nature, where the women were trained to sing so severely that they preserved the sound of Orpheus’ lyre over the centuries.” This is what the women’s choir Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares revives today.

A choir originally made up of singers discovered in rural villages at the beginning of the 1950s, with no musical training but with exceptional vocal talents, voices ready to be tuned by their conductors to perform ancient, mystical and obscure repertoires from all over the Danube area and then the Mediterranean.

It was Peter Murhpy, the legendary Bauhaus singer, who ‘rediscovered’ them in the mid-1980s and sent a tape to the English label 4AD, a record company open to experimentation. Ivo, the label boss, later said that when he played it, his knees trembled with emotion.

4AD then reissued Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, a record originally cut in 1975 thanks to the Swiss musicologist Marcel Cellier. The response was overwhelming: suffice it to say that no non-Anglophone vocal group had ever before sold 100,000 copies in the UK and 500,000 in the US. And the rest is history.

Today it is our knees that will tremble when the Bulgarian singers make their voices heard in Val di Fiemme, in the presence of the Dolomites.

How to get there

from Pampeago by the Agnello chairlift, then on foot along trail 509
45 min walking time; altitude change: 100 metres; difficulty level: E

Excursion with Trentino Mountain Guides

at €15.00 per person (free for children under 8). 20% discount for Trentino Guest Card and Card di Territorio holders. Reservation required: Book by 12:00 pm the day before the excursion with the Val di Fiemme ApT by calling +39 0462 241111 or via the following link.

Limited availability

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