Jordi

Nothing or next to nothing was known about Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe – not even his first name – and the mystery surrounding his person only intensified the mystery of his music: the Concerts à deux violes, which are the only pieces that have come down to us. He was known to violists as the inventor of the seventh string that was added to the bass viol of the Baroque era in France. It was gathered that he had two daughters because he was known to have given concerts with them. And Titon du Tillet had recounted the pleasing story of Marin Marais coming to listen to his master in secret, hidden under the hut in a mulberry tree where the latter “played the viol more peacefully and more delectably”.

Jordi Savall releases his first Schubert album, following a recording of Beethoven’s complete symphonies which largely contributed to renew our vision of the early Romantic repertoire. The Catalan maestro delivers a recording freed from the weight of past traditions to underline the dynamics, the section balance and the timbres that are required in this repertoire. Jordi Savall decided to entitle this album Transfiguration, because, as he explains, we are always astonished at Schubert’s ability to reach this essentially internal and spiritual dimension, this kind of Transfiguration, which he simply sums up as follows in his diary in 1824: ‘My production is the result of my musical knowledge and my pain’ or, to quote a poem he wrote a little earlier: ‘When I wanted to sing love, it turned into pain. When I wanted to sing pain, it turned into love.’

This interpretation is a perfect match to Savall's equally beautiful Art of the Fugue. Here you find even more variety in the blend of instruments. I am not going to have only one version of this music and my first recommendation is Münchinger's more emotional recording on Decca. When it comes to colourful instrumentation, however, Savall is the winner, and the direction & playing needs no justification, it is simply wonderful, even if I doubt this folk music style reflects the spirit of the baroque era.

Studio Armide represents magnificent documentary film Olivier Simonnet «Marc-Antoine Charpentier, un automne musical à Versailles». Marc-Antoine Charpentier never had an official function at the court of Louis XIV. In 2004 Versailles finally opened its doors to him for the tercentennial commemorations of his death. The finest performers of baroque music, from Jordi Savall to Christophe Rousset, played the most important works of the time in the Royal Chapel opera house, as well as in the chateau salons and galleries: from instrumental music (Lully’s Alceste) to vocal music (Actéon), from lyric tragedy (Médée) to sacred music (Missa assumpta est Maria). The life of this collaborator of Molière’s and cultural life under Louis XIV are enriched by the participation of conductors and musicians.

For this set of Beethoven's first five symphonies, Jordi Savall began with the fundamental idea of recovering the original sound of the orchestra and tempo as the composer imagined them. All the orchestral work was performed with instruments corresponding to those used at the time, and by 55-60 musicians, a number similar to that arranged by the composer. 35 players were selected from Le Concert des Nations alongside 20 young musicians from different countries across world. The main goal was to reflect, in our 21st century, all the richness and beauty of these symphonies, through a true balance between colors and the quality of the orchestra's natural sound.

Baroque instrumental music often took the form of dance suites, which allowed considerable flexibility in the arrangement of minuets, sarabandes, gavottes, bourrées, chaconnes, allemandes, and courantes, mixed with character pieces and even scenic tableaux in the much larger presentations of court ballets. In Terpsichore: Apothéose de la Danse baroque, a splendid 2018 AliaVox release by Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations, works by Jean-Féry Rebel and Georg Philipp Telemann are compared side-by-side to indicate the commonality of practices at the time, as well as the variety of dance music in the hands of two different masters.

The existence of a third Passion by Bach based on the Gospel of St. Mark had long been known. Numerous studies carried out from the second half of the 20th century by specialist musicologists and musicians confirmed that on Good Friday, 1731, Bach presented this Passion set to a text by Picander, which the latter published one year later at the same time as his third volume of poetry. In 2009, the existence of this Passion was fully confirmed by the discovery at St. Petersburg of a later version of the libretto used for a new performance of the work, which took place in 1744. Compared with the 1732 libretto, it contains a number of modifications to the texts, as well as a different ordering of some chorales and arias and the addition of two new arias. Thanks to the new version, we have a very clear idea of the form and content of this third Passion by Bach.

Jordi Savall is strongly devoted, perhaps more so than any other conductor, to Franz Josef Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross in its orchestral version, the original incarnation of this masterwork; the familiar string quartet and less familiar solo keyboard and oratorio versions came later. Savall, as is his wont, strongly responds to any music with a historic connection to his native Spain; the commission for the Seven Last Words arrived from José Sáenz de Santmaría of the confraternity of the Hermandad, and it was first performed in Cádiz, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Western Europe.

The technology at our command, the electronic images we see every day, the ease and swiftness of world travel and communication has left modern humans with a waning sense of awe. We can argue about who was or is better off, but for 17th century Europeans, awe-inspiring events happened with some regularity. Pageantry was one of the more effective and popular means to impress a congregation, and there was nothing like a huge celebration in a massive cathedral to remind each person of his place in the grand scheme.