Jordi+savall

Tomás Luis de Victoria’s OFFICIUM HEBDOMADÆ SANCTÆ is one of the most compelling examples of creative genius in a composer, a toweringly poignant and masterpiece on the Passion of Christ, a pure but infinitely subtle creation, Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

Jordi Savall's exemplary performance of Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks is among the finest available on disc: refined and precise, but very big, with blood-stirring grandeur. This is just the kind of extroverted, rousing presentation that best highlights the music's open-air ceremonial function. Savall's Le Concert des Nations is essentially a chamber orchestra with double or triple winds, but the sound he elicits from the group is majestic and surprisingly powerful. The playing is crisp and the rhythmic articulation bracing, but the sound is never brash. In fact, more often than not it is seductively sensual, a heady integration of precision and supple, shapely phrasing. Handel left no authoritative edition of the score of Water Music and it has traditionally been divided into three suites, but Savall reorders the material into two suites, a decision that makes more sense in terms of key relationships and that sounds entirely satisfying.

After the critical success of the first volume of Beethoven’s symphonies, Jordi Savall now offers us from the Sixth to the Ninth.This latest publication crowns a nearly two-year world tour and confirms the extent to which the director renews our vision of these most famous works. The Concert des Nations shows that it also knows how to magnify the repertoire of the early 19th century, which will be confirmed by a forthcoming Schubert album.

This disc of Iberian and Latin American Renaissance music is a reissue cleverly disguised as a new release. It compiles music from several recordings by Catalonian visionary Jordi Savall, his luminous-voiced collaborator Montserrat Figueras, and his Hesperion XXI and Capella Reial de Catalunya ensembles, dressing them up with a new set of rather philosophical booklet notes on themes of change, of intercultural tolerance, and of the evolving nature of Christianity in the Iberian realm and in New Spain. Some might call this a cynical ploy, but actually Savall has always been moving in a circle, so to speak, spiraling inward toward a deeper musical understanding of the historical themes touched on here: the lingering effects of the legacy of medieval Iberia and its "mestissage" or mixture of cultures, the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles (Carlos) V (did you know that he was both the first monarch to be called "His Majesty" and the first to be honored with the claim that the "sun never set" on his empire?), and the relationships between cultivated and popular styles, both in Iberia and the New World.

Jordi Savall is among the leading instrumentalists and conductors of the European early music scene, specializing in Renaissance, Baroque, and Medieval music. He took an interest in early music, and began learning the viola da gamba. He studied the gamba and early music research and practice with Wieland Kuijken in Brussels and August Wenzinger at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. In 1968, Savall married the soprano Montserrat Figueras, who shared his interest in early music. With Figueras and other musicians interested in early Spanish music, he founded the ensemble Hespèrion XX in 1974. The ensemble took its name from an ancient name for the Western European region from Italy to Iberia. At the turn of the 21st century, the group changed its name to Hespèrion XXI.

Jordi Savall is painting Monteverdi in the colours of the Mediterranean. The Catalan maestro has entrusted the title role of this foundational work of Western music to a remarkable baritone: the magnificent Marc Mauillon embodies Orfeo, his resonant and ductile voice in perfect unison with the conductor’s musical vision. Here, a warm performance and rich sound reign supreme!

After the critical success of the first volume of Beethoven's symphonies, Jordi Savall offers us Symphonies Six to Nine. This latest publication crowns a nearly two-year world tour and confirms the extent to which the Savall renews our vision of these most famous works. The Concert des Nations shows that it also knows how to magnify the repertoire of the early 19th century.