Jubilate Deo

Jordi Savall - Guerre & Paix. 1614-1714 (2015) [Official Digital Download 16-44.1] {Alia Vox}
Official Digital Download 16-44.1 | FLAC (tracks) -> 836 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 368 Mb
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© 2015 Alia Vox
Classical / Chamber Music / Vocal Music / Baroque

Malgré son titre, on ne peut vraiment pas accuser ce nouvel album de Savall de n’être guère épais : voilà une cinquantaine de pièces de mille origines chantant qui la guerre, qui la paix ; là où Savall est hautement original, c’est qu’il présente toutes les nations belligérantes de la Renaissance jusqu’à, à la louche, le milieu du XVIIIe siècle, de l’Espagne à l’Angleterre en passant par toutes les Allemagnes, l’Italie, l’Europe centrale sans oublier les forces orientales, en particulier l’Empire Ottoman – dont toutes les musiques ne sont pas anonymes, puisqu’il s’y trouve également Dervis Mehmet – et dont l’on pourra entendre une vraie « marche turque », la musique des janissaires qui a tant inspiré les musiciens européens dès les grandes incursions ottomanes (dont on rappelle qu’elles frôlèrent les portes de Vienne, par exemple en 1683).

Grands motets, requiring lavish vocal and instrumental resources, always signalled important occasions at the French court. Until the advent of public concerts in Paris in the 1720s they were performed exclusively by the king's musicians for the court. Olivier Schneebeli has assembled an admirable survey of these large-scale settings of psalm texts, which were excerpted and arranged to convey doubles entendres flattering to Louis XIV and his policies. The music employs an orchestra with a full continuo complement, a choir and a petit choeur of soloists that relies on high male voices. The only concession to modern times is the use of sopranos instead of castrati in the top part and the inclusion of girls among the pages.

Lully, Handel, Charpentier, Scheidt, Biber, Schein, Cabanilles, Dumanoir, Rosenmüller, Jenkins, Cererols, Blow: this double SACD-book gathers the who’s-who of European music, to mention but a few, of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries. Deeply affected by the Thirty Years War as well as the War of Spanish Succession, the finest music inspired by this turmoil is vividly performed by Jordi Savall and his ensembles. The set ends with a fantastic and complete performance of Handel’s 'Jubilate Deo'.

Two fantastic examples of 17th century mass performed by specialists of the genre. The whole is perfectly chiseled, mixing the warm sonorities of the viols with the vocal and textual rigor of the singers, restoring in a serene atmosphere the style appropriate to each of the composers (delicately archaic for the one, soberly modern for the other.

Hyperion’s previous recordings with Winchester Cathedral Choir are among the jewels in its choral collection. Now the label begins a new relationship with this ancient foundation and its latest director of music, Andrew Lumsden. Their new disc features a composer who was at the centre of the English twentieth-century choral tradition.