Jordi Savall

[San Antone]

Savall discography here

http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/performers/savall.html

Fan website here

http://www.classicalacarte.net/savall/jordi_savall.htm

It looks as though h's been shunned by the academic world, despite seeming to perform enormous quantities of often very obscure ancient music which must need quite a bit of musicological input. Does he have a tame musicologist? I can find no books on him and his work, his ideas; I can see no doctoral theses, academic conferences.

He's too popular/successful.   

[Gurn Blanston]

Very many, even for a later music enthusiast. This one here, CD & DVD versions:



IMO, they are the finest realizations of a great work, what more can one ask?

[Ken B]

Damn but there is a lot of Savall I haven't heard yet.

Now I know what I want for my next birthday ...

[Mandryka]

More than 200 new sound recordings in 50 years, not to mention films, reissues, concerts, operas, running his recording business etc. What's the guy on?

[Ras]

I love him as a Bach conductor: The Orchestral Suites - The Brandenburgs and the B minor Mass (only available in this luxury package - see below).
Actually I like Savall pretty much in any repertoire I have heard him play, but Bach just happens to be my favorite composer.
His new recording of the last three Mozart symphonies is also very good.

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[Carlo Gesualdo]

Nice feedback fellows, love you're  comments, feel great, music is passion burning and never ending flame, a joy that never end, music is in the air in our soul,, some listen  some feel the music some understand, that so cool in the process hmm, respond in horde, I guess Le chant de la sybille remain  another classic an epic one. what a lovely sleeve the Savall have music in there blood.

[North Star]

His Morales disc is a favourite for sure. And another vote for Istanbul



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[Florestan]

Too many to mention. Pretty much everything he touches turns into gold. One of the greatest musicians of our time.

I saw him and his team in Bucharest playing works from their Istanbul cd. Mesmerizing. And it was all the more remarkable since Montserrat Figueiras had recently died yet he didn't cancel the concert. At one moment the lights went off completely, a huge portrait of her was projected on a screen and he played a lament on his viol, unseen. It was a most moving moment and when the lights went on again everyone on stage and in the hall had tears in their eyes.

[Mandryka]

Too many to mention. Pretty much everything he touches turns into gold. One of the greatest musicians of our time.

I saw him and his team in Bucharest playing works from their Istanbul cd. Mesmerizing. And it was all the more remarkable since Montserrat Figueiras had recently died yet he didn't cancel the concert. At one moment the lights went off completely, a huge portrait of her was projected on a screen and he played a lament on his viol, unseen. It was a most moving moment and when the lights went on again everyone on stage and in the hall had tears in their eyes.

He was blessed with two very great singers IMO, Montserrat Figueiras and his daughter Ariana Savall.

[Papy Oli]

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And another recommendation for this one. Fantastic CD.

[Mandryka]

He's too popular/successful.   

I don't know how to put this into words really, and anyway I'm not sure that it isn't rubbish, but I think there's something really anti-intellectual about what he does. I don't mean that in a negative way, on the contrary. It's like, very often with his CDs it's like a wave of freshness wafting through the room, you can just lie back and immerse yourself in a world far away in time and in space. Like what Savall does is take old music and turn it into easy listening.

I'm thinking about the vocal music and the ensemble music really, and less so the baroque and classical stuff, because I don't know them so well. The viol music is quite another thing, quite a different set of values.

A classic example of what I mean is this, where he's intervened in the music, made transcriptions.



It's interesting to contrast the effect of those interventions with something more HIP, like this

[San Antone]

I don't know how to put this into words really, and anyway I'm not sure that it isn't rubbish, but I think there's something really anti-intellectual about what he does. I don't mean that in a negative way, on the contrary. It's like, very often with his CDs it's like a wave of freshness wafting through the room, you can just lie back and immerse yourself in a world far away in time and in space. Like what Savall does is take music and turn it into easy listening.

I'm thinking about the vocal music and the ensemble music really, and less so the baroque and classical stuff, because I don't know them so well. The viol music is quite another thing, quite a different set of values.

A classic example of what I mean is this

Having not heard the CD you mentioned I can't comment directly on your post.  But I can say that I do not consider "intellectual" an attribute music benefits from.  For sure, having a solid training and historical contextual knowledge are important ingredients, especially for an early music musician.  But, generally, I think a musician should perform without intellectualism (if that is a word) out front.

It is like a comment I once heard about golf: "A player should practice shots every day, with diligence and purpose.  But when he's out on the course, he should forget all that and play the game without thinking about his swing."

[Mandryka]

Having not heard the CD you mentioned I can't comment directly on your post.  But I can say that I do not consider "intellectual" an attribute music benefits from.  For sure, having a solid training and historical contextual knowledge are important ingredients, especially for an early music musician.  But, generally, I think a musician should perform without intellectualism (if that is a word) out front.

It is like a comment I once herd about golf: "A player should practice shots every day, with diligence and purpose.  But when he's out on the course, he should forget all that and play the game without thinking about his swing."

I just added something to the post. It's more than what you're getting at -- but anyway I'm not sure I'm right about any of this. But I want to say that Savall is by nature a great popularisor, a great simplifier. He sacrifices HIP for accessibility.

But with the viol music, on the contrary! He is well and truly challenging -- with Tobias Hume or Sainte Colombe for example.

Saval's Milan transcriptions, by the way, are incredibly enjoyable -- it really is like a breath of fresh air!

[Florestan]

Having not heard the CD you mentioned I can't comment directly on your post.  But I can say that I do not consider "intellectual" an attribute music benefits from.  For sure, having a solid training and historical contextual knowledge are important ingredients, especially for an early music musician.  But, generally, I think a musician should perform without intellectualism (if that is a word) out front.

Agreed. Completely.

[Florestan]

I want to say that Savall is by nature a great popularisor, a great simplifier. He sacrifices HIP for accessibility.

The man's a genius, HIP be damned. And I don't think he does anything to the music he plays that a performer back then did not do. He did for the dissemination of early music among the general audience more than perhaps any other musician, and did so with gusto and in the most enjoyable manner (besides the joys of his and his teams music-making, the CDs they release, including the booklets, are works of art in themselves). What's wrong with that, I wonder?

[Gurn Blanston]

The man's a genius, HIP be damned. And I don't think he does anything to the music he plays that a performer back then did not do. He did for the dissemination of early music among the general audience more than perhaps any other musician, and did so with gusto and in the most enjoyable manner (besides the joys of his and his teams music-making, the CDs they release, including the booklets, are works of art in themselves). What's wrong with that, I wonder?

We are in complete agreement on that. Every performance and realization of a piece of music had its own character and uniqueness. Sometimes it couldn't be played as written because of instruments, or skill limitations, whatever, but the music was played anyway on whatever was available and as best as possible. Those things are not germane to Savall's realizations: he can have any instrument he wants and has players of the highest skill level, but even so, if he wishes to diverge from the (nonexistent until the 19th century) 'as written' philosophy, that is truly HIP.

[Florestan]

We are in complete agreement on that. Every performance and realization of a piece of music had its own character and uniqueness. Sometimes it couldn't be played as written because of instruments, or skill limitations, whatever, but the music was played anyway on whatever was available and as best as possible. Those things are not germane to Savall's realizations: he can have any instrument he wants and has players of the highest skill level, but even so, if he wishes to diverge from the (nonexistent until the 19th century) 'as written' philosophy, that is truly HIP.

Yep! 

[San Antone]

I am listening to his group of Bach recordings: The Musical Offering, Art of Fugue and Sonatas for viola de gamba with Ton Koopman.  He's also done some of the larger choral works, but these three works are of more interest to me today.

[Mandryka]

I think that when you take a piece which was written for solo lute (eg Luis Milan fantasias) or a piece written for solo keyboard (like most of Art of Fugue), you lose something, you lose integrity, by transposing it to ensemble. It transforms the nature of the music in a really fundamental way. 

I note, without drawing any conclusions,  that Savall doesn't transpose viol music for colourful ensemble. Viol is  his instrument.

What he does is the equivalent, the other way round, of Reger's piano transcriptions of the Brandenburg Concertos.

[Ken B]

So Florestan, just to clarify your stance on HIP. A performer announces he is going to play Mozart's PC 24. He does not touch the piano but conducts the orchestra in what sounds suspiciously like The unanswered Question by Ives. Is that a perfectly fair interpretation of Mozart 24?