Orient Classical Music

The award-winning duo of flautist Silvia Schiaffino and guitarist Renato Procopio present a musical travelogue ranging from Western to Eastern Europe before journeying further afield to Japan, Iran and Korea. As well as masterpieces such as Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances, and a rip-roaring Monti Csárdás, this evocative selection includes the colourful and piquant, such as the music of Sakura, as well as Procopio’s own vibrant arrangement of Korean folk songs.

Listening to this selection of music from East and West so ingeniously put together by Jordi Savall is no ordinary experience. In addition to the aesthetic emotion, we feel another that is even more intense – a sense of magical communion with reconciled humanity.
One can’t help feeling that, with the simultaneous demise of both Sepharad and Al-Andalus in the second half of the 15th century, only forty years after the fall of Byzantium, some part of the human soul was also lost. Those events led to the destruction of intellectual and spiritual bridges between East and West that have never since been repaired. Once the fertile hub of our cultural universe, the Mediterranean became a battlefield and a barrier between peoples.

In the margin of official religious institutions, Catholic confraternities and Muslim orders offered a mystical experience. Music played an important role in their rituals, as a way of access to God. Simple, repetitive, haunting, this music sung in groups during processions or devotional meetings was intended to place the assembly in a state of ecstatic trance.

After 1683, when Polish troops saved Vienna from a Turkish siege, Turkey was no longer a threat to Western Europe and became a symbol of the mysterious Orient. For European musicians, however, Turkey was less nebulous, as Turkish instruments (including drums, cymbals, and triangles) entered the European orchestra and composers emulated the sound of the Turkish military band. A charming introduction to eighteenth century musical Orientalism in Europe, this album features exquisite performances by Concerto Köln and Sarband, a traditional Turkish ensemble. The opening track, a scintillating rendition of the overture for Mozart's Oriental opera Die Entfuhrung as dem Serail, features traditional Turkish percussion that adds zest to the performance.

The figure of George Frideric Handel cast a long shadow over musical London in the first half of the eighteenth century, condemning many of his contemporaries – fine composers themselves – to long years of obscurity. This recording throws light into forgotten corners and discovers some glittering gems, some of them demanding dazzling vocal fireworks from their performers. Several of these composers set scenes from Classical mythology or Old Testament narratives – but they also explore the underside of the Baroque psyche in one of David’s darkest psalms and in a representation of Arcadian madness.

This album features the complete works for flute (to date) by Franco-Ukranian composer Dimitri Tchesnokov (b.1982), with the exception of his flute trio Tableaux feìeìriques. This programme is supplemented by some of Tchesnokov’s piano solos in a comparable style. The pieces presented here offer a contrast to the composer’s religious/mystical music (3 Chants sacreìs, Requiem, Ave Verum) and his historic/realistic works (Symphonie archaïque, Château de Grandval, Symphonie Ukrainienne).