This is a genuine 800 year old Troubadour song, arranged here for solo lyre, & written by Walther Von Der Vogelweide called "Palästinalied". Here are some interesting details about the song from Wikipedia:

"Palästinalied was written in connection with the Fifth Crusade (1217-1221). Although it is a political-religious propaganda song describing a crusade into the Holy Land, it is atypical for a song of this kind in that it also recognizes the claim of all Abrahamic religions to the Holy Land, although finally asserting that the Christian cause is the "right one" in the last strophe:

Kristen juden und die heiden 
jehent daz dis ir erbe sî 
got müesse ez ze rehte scheiden 
dur die sîne namen drî 
al diu werlt diu strîtet her 
wir sîn an der rehten ger. 
reht ist daz er uns gewer 

This strophe can be translated as follows:

"Christians, Jews and Heathens claim this to be their heritage. God has to assign it in the right way, for His three names. The whole world is coming battling here - our cause is right. It is right that He is granting it to us."

Despite all the pointless religious intolerance (as the words to this song certainly testify!), and the sheer bloody brutality of the Crusades, at least they resulted some amazing, utterly timeless melodies, like this! 

My many releases of albums for solo lyre can be found on iTunes:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/michael-levy/id4324920

For full details, and all the historical research behind my myriad of "Musical Adventures in Time Travel", please visit my official website:

http://www.ancientlyre.com

Many thanks for watching!

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Palästinalied (Walter Von Der Vogelweide)

Michael Levy is a UK-based composer for the recreated lyres of antiquity, whose musical mission is to create an entirely new musical genre, which could best be described as a 'New Ancestral Music' - dedicated to creating new music for the recreated ancient lyre, featuring an exotic palette of ancient musical modes and intonations not heard for almost 2000 years.

Michael has collaborated with the Grammy award winning Canadian composer, Rufus Wainwright - Rufus musically incorporated one of Michael's "Hymn to Zeus"  in two scenes of his second opera, "Hadrian" - which premiered in Toronto on 13th October 2018.

In 2022, Michael collaborated with the iconic American artist, Jeff Koons – his music for recreated ancient Greek kithara is currently the main soundscape of Koon’s animatronic sculpture, “Apollo Kithara” (2020-2022) on view at DESTE’s Project Space on the Greek island of Hydra.

Palästinalied (Walter Von Der Vogelweide)

Michael Levy Lyre Music