Category Archives: music

The Magic of Jordi Savall

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Nélida. Nassar 16 April 2025

The magic of a musical evening often lies in the encounter between a venue, a repertoire, and one (or more) performer(s). It was this magic that defined the closing concert of the Boston Early Music Festival 2024-2025 season Sunday, April 13. The venue: Jordan Hall with its unique architecture in the heart of Boston with excellent acoustics, where all seats on both the main floor and horseshoe-shaped balcony have unobstructed views of the stage. The program: Entitled Music of Fire and Love: Folías, Battles, and Lamenti; Glosado, Variations and Improvisations where Maestro Jordi Savall with his legendary ensemble Hespèrion XXI, reunite a group of exceptional musicians, each a specialist in historical instruments bringing centuries-old compositions to life. A program standing out for its combination of rigorous research and high-quality musical interpretation, offered the audience a sonic journey through European and South American music of that period notwithstanding great wit. The performers: Joining Savall were Xavier Díaz-Latorre (Italian Baroque triple harp and Spanish Baroque harp), Andrew Lawrence-King (arpa doppia), Philippe Pierlot (treble and bass viols), Xavier Puertas (violone), and David Mayoral (percussion), with Savall himself as the director and performing on the treble viols. The musicians’ beautifully blended sound was obvious from the very first notes, and their pleasure in playing together – relishing the give and take of the civilized, conversational music – was tangible. This new tour across the United States is a project that is presented in a total of six concerts across the American continent. Boston was its third destination. Jordi Savall is one of the most versatile musical personalities of his generation. For more than fifty years, he has rescued musical gems from the obscurity of neglect and oblivion and given them back for all to enjoy. A conductor who draws the world together, he has been called a magical musician, a time traveler, a globe-trotting adventurer, a tireless scholar, a virtuoso performer and a visionary ensemble leader. We may not know exactly where Savall will lead us next as he mines the past for treasures that illuminate new connections between historic people and places, cultures, and movements, but we are always thrilled to come along for the ride. His loyal and enthusiastic following which turned up in force at Jordan Hall could not be satisfied until two encores had been granted, taking us even further afield, to Scotland and Peru. One thing is clear, Jordi Savall is a gift to us all.

An Early Music Voyage with the Legendary Jordi Savall

music

Nélida Nassar 02.07.2020

Jordi Savall , the extraordinarily gifted Catalan master of the viola da Gamba and director of the world-famous ensembles Hespèrion XX (known since 2000 as Hespèrion XXI) and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, is one of my musical heroes. For 30 years his recordings have been a source of joy and astonishment for music lovers around the world. When I learned that he is coming back to Sanders Theatre in Cambridge this evening, under the auspices of Boston Early Music Festival, for a concert devoted to “Splendor of the Iberian Baroque,” I hastened to include excerpts of his music-making on all my social media posts. He will take the audience on a journey to discover the roots of the musical culture of Baroque Spain in a concert featuring his GRAMMY-winning vocal ensemble, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, and his famous consort of virtuoso instrumentalists, Hespèrion XXI.

How does he reinvent pieces from the past, dating back centuries? What is his magic recipe for making ancient music relevant today? It all depends on the era in question, whether the music is medieval, Renaissance or Baroque. The closer we get to our own times, the more information one can find concerning specific matters, such as bow technique, ornamentation, improvisation, and vocal techniques. There is a lot of information from around 1500 to the Romantic era. But the essential thing is to allow the music to convey something of the real life of a culture in a given period. When the orchestra performs, the goal is to enable us to feel emotions similar to those of the people of the time and bring us a little closer to their unique life stories.

Savall’s orchestras and his musicians possess an exceptional range of skills. They can play everything — from medieval music to Renaissance music, and from Baroque to classical.  Performing with musicians from Turkey, Syria, Greece, Morocco, Mali and Madagascar, as well as from closer to home, has been Savall’s hallmark. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the arts flourished in a “Golden Century” across the cultural melting pot of the Iberian Peninsula. Painting, literature, architecture, and music all thrived during this period of political and cultural ascendancy. The concert will evoke this rich history, joining music from the Arab tradition with Spanish music in a vibrant celebration of this glorious era.

Voices
Lucía Martín-Cartón, soprano
Viva Biancaluna Biffi, mezzo-soprano
Víctor Sordo, tenor
 Yannis François, baritone

Orchestra
Jordi Savall, treble viol
Viva Biancaluna Biffi, tenor viol
Juan Manuel Quintana, bass viol
Xavier Puertas, violone 
Xavier Díaz-Latorre, guitar & vihuela
Andrew Lawrence-King, triple harp
David Mayoral, percussion

Friday, February 7, 2020 at 8pm
Sanders Theatre at Harvard University, Cambridge
Pre-Concert Talk at 7pm.