Tweet
HESPERION XXI REVIEW - A GLORIOUS MEDIEVAL MELTING POT OF MUSIC
Sir Jack Lyons concert hall, York
Jordi Savall's early music ensemble connects three great ancient
musical cultures - Jewish, Islamic and Christian
Alfred Hickling The Guardian, Tuesday 15 July 2014 15.18 BST
Tending the early music flame ... Jordi Savall of Hespèrion XXI.
Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images
Centuries of trade and conflict between the Christian and Arab-Islamic
worlds brought textiles, spices and bowed stringed instruments to
Europe. No one knows precisely when the violin's middle-eastern
ancestors first infiltrated the Mediterranean; though there does not
appear to be one of them that the great Catalan viol player Jordi
Savallhas not been able to master.
Since founding the early music ensemble Hespèrion XX in 1974 (the
group gained an additional numeral at the turn of the millennium),
Savall has been one of the world's greatest exponents of the viol
de gamba and its variants. For this opening concert of the 2014 York
early music festival, he focused on a family of instruments including
the cello-likerubab and its smaller cousin the lira, that were first
depicted in 10th-century manuscripts.
The programme demonstrated how - until the expulsion of the Jews in
the 15th century - the Iberian peninsula formed the nub of three
great medieval cultures, Jewish, Islamic and Christian, in which
Provencal troubadour song, Sephardic ceremonial music and Arabic maqam
blended in a glorious musical melting pot. Presented as a continuous
improvisation, the music was the product of mercurial virtuosity and
scholarly guesswork, as very little secular instrumental music from
the middle ages was written down. It also indicated how fluid the
definition of early music has become, as some of the rhythmic figures
and microtonal inflections might strike an Armenian traditional
musician as entirely contemporary. As an encore, Savall prefaced a
Kurdish dance from Syria with a prayer for peace in the region. Savall
carries the title of official Unesco goodwill ambassador; and though
his music may not be sufficient to quell the conflict, he can at
least tend the flame of one of the world's oldest civilisations.
* Listen again on BBC iPlayer until 17 July. The York early music
festivalcontinues until 19 July.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/15/hesperion-xxi-early-music-festival-review-york-savall
Sir Jack Lyons concert hall, York
Jordi Savall's early music ensemble connects three great ancient
musical cultures - Jewish, Islamic and Christian
Alfred Hickling The Guardian, Tuesday 15 July 2014 15.18 BST
Tending the early music flame ... Jordi Savall of Hespèrion XXI.
Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images
Centuries of trade and conflict between the Christian and Arab-Islamic
worlds brought textiles, spices and bowed stringed instruments to
Europe. No one knows precisely when the violin's middle-eastern
ancestors first infiltrated the Mediterranean; though there does not
appear to be one of them that the great Catalan viol player Jordi
Savallhas not been able to master.
Since founding the early music ensemble Hespèrion XX in 1974 (the
group gained an additional numeral at the turn of the millennium),
Savall has been one of the world's greatest exponents of the viol
de gamba and its variants. For this opening concert of the 2014 York
early music festival, he focused on a family of instruments including
the cello-likerubab and its smaller cousin the lira, that were first
depicted in 10th-century manuscripts.
The programme demonstrated how - until the expulsion of the Jews in
the 15th century - the Iberian peninsula formed the nub of three
great medieval cultures, Jewish, Islamic and Christian, in which
Provencal troubadour song, Sephardic ceremonial music and Arabic maqam
blended in a glorious musical melting pot. Presented as a continuous
improvisation, the music was the product of mercurial virtuosity and
scholarly guesswork, as very little secular instrumental music from
the middle ages was written down. It also indicated how fluid the
definition of early music has become, as some of the rhythmic figures
and microtonal inflections might strike an Armenian traditional
musician as entirely contemporary. As an encore, Savall prefaced a
Kurdish dance from Syria with a prayer for peace in the region. Savall
carries the title of official Unesco goodwill ambassador; and though
his music may not be sufficient to quell the conflict, he can at
least tend the flame of one of the world's oldest civilisations.
* Listen again on BBC iPlayer until 17 July. The York early music
festivalcontinues until 19 July.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/15/hesperion-xxi-early-music-festival-review-york-savall