When musicians of our generation seek to provide musical depictions of the pilgrimages to St. James of Compostela, they turn most frequently to the Middle Ages. The La Fenice ensemble, however, has chosen a different approach by taking a map of the Camino Francès (1648) as its inspiration. Here they bring formal as well as popular repertoire of the time back to life with songs both sacred and secular, combining these with the joyfully festive music that accompanied the travellers from France to Galicia via Languedoc, Aragon and Castile. This recording mirrors our concerts based on the French and Spanish music of the Way of St. James, although with an occasional detour to China and Latin America; we have preferred to give a free and imaginative idea of the types of music that would have been heard on the Way in those times rather than a true musicological reconstruction.Our dearest wish is to communicate, outside the normal concert situation, the emotions and the pleasure that we experienced in playing, reciting and singing these works; our ambition is that all may come to share the beauty and the harmony that form every musician’s reason for living.