Jordi

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.

Johann Sebastian Bach composed six cantatas for the Christmas holidays in 1734, to have one performed for each particular holiday during services in the main churches of Leipzig, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas. Both the narrative march of the Gospel and the tonality in which the musical framework was composed, give the cantatas a character of an autonomous cycle that Jordi Savall and his groups face for the first time.

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.

Vocal music is a reflection of its time, crossing the centuries to reveal emotion, particularly its religious side in which it forms an obvious prayer. Thus, on this recording which begins with Alfonso X. El Sabio all the way to Mozart and Haydn, the Vox Aeterna (Eternal voice) speaks to us, moves us, making itself the intermediary of our own feelings.

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.

It was 1988, and at that time the vast majority of Charpentier’s works were still accessible only via the original sources, so we had to rely on microfilms of the composer’s complete works collected in the twenty-eight manuscript volumes known as “Meslanges”. Poring over the manuscript pages on the screen of our microfilm reader, I studied and selected the works for the programme on the basis of the original texts.

“…this live 2006 performance… is given in its original orchestral form in the location for which it was intended - the chapel of Santa Cueva in Cádiz… Played on period instruments the performance… expertly motivated by Jordi Savall, achieving a fine blend of solemnity and austerity with intimacy of feeling. …this is the ultimate in authentic performance.” (BBC Music Magazine)