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Between the Notes: Jordi Savall
by Todd Burns
For music junkies, one of the worst — and sometimes best — developments of digital music is the lack of context. Without liner notes, it’s often hard to tell where, when, or even by whom a record was made. Sometimes it's actually nice not to know anything about the music, but every once in a while, a record comes along that demands illumination. That’s where we come in: each month, eMusic's Between the Notes will bring you the stories behind some of our favorite albums and artists. This month: Early Music master Jordi Savall.
Jordi Savall may have undertaken years of music instruction in prestigious institutions, but his story is just as DIY as any you’re likely to come across. In 1998, dissatisfied with the major label system, he set out on his own to create Alia Vox (Latin for "Another Voice") — a home for his own performances of the music that he loved. That music can easily be deemed “Early Music,” but the definition of the term has been the subject of debate. Savall weighs in: “(Early Music) is when you use original instruments, techniques and perform in the original style.”
Savall has been performing in that original style for more than thirty years. As a boy, his love for music began as a member of a local boys choir, but it was his later work with the cello that piqued his interest in Early Music. “I was playing cello, and playing not only normal repertoire, but pieces by Bach, Marais, Simpson, that were not so often played. Music that was originally written for the viola da gamba. Later I realised this was a very nice instrument too,” he said in an interview in 2000.
New Yorker critic Alex Ross heard Savall's work on this “very nice instrument” and hailed it as “genius,” while the Boston Globe called Savall's group, Hespèrion XX, “the embodiment of musical perfection.” But it wasn’t always this way. The viola da gamba, unlike most other instruments, doesn’t come with a number of teachers ready to impart their wisdom. In fact, at the time that he was learning it, Savall relied just as much on texts from the eras in which they were used (the Renaissance and Baroque periods) as the advice of current masters. Both were scarce, though — and Savall says that he owes much of his education simply to playing the instrument: “You find [the technique] in the music itself,” he says.
For years, Savall played in relative obscurity — only well known among Early Music aficionados. That, however, changed, with Savall’s 1991 score to Tous les matins du monde, which went on to sell more than a million copies worldwide. The film tells the story of Marin Marais (played by Gérard Depardieu), one of the best viol players and composers of the 17th century, and his teacher Sainte Colombe. The soundtrack and film’s enormous success changed everything — for the first time, Savall says, “an audience not made up of specialists” came to hear the music performed on a more regular basis.
As the crowds grew larger and Savall continued to unearth great, “lost” pieces of music to present, the idea of creating a label became more and more enticing. Free from the shackles of release schedules, Savall would be able to release as much as he wanted — and to retain creative control over the next phase of his career.
Among the best releases on the label is Ostinato, made with Hespèrion XXI (the successor to Hespèrion XX) — the group normally includes his wife, soprano Montserrat Figueras, but here she’s absent from the proceedings as Savall winds his improvisatory gamba playing through some stunning compositions originally penned by Henry Purcell, Johann Pachelbel and a version of “Greensleeve to a Ground.” On the latter, you can hear much of what makes Savall great: at nearly nine minutes, he goes from patient beginnings through to a tour de force middle portion, and ends the piece with an achingly beautiful coda. The melody to "Greensleeves" rarely bears this much repetition, but Savall seems to wring a different emotion or color out of the simple tune each time around.
When asked to explain the appeal of Early Music, Savall thinks for a moment and comes up with a simple answer, “There’s a human dimension to this music — something you just don’t hear that often anymore.” It sounds almost naïve at first, but when you think about it — and, more importantly, when you listen to it — Savall’s statement makes complete sense. Much of what Savall tends to play is so rarely performed that each time you press "play" on an Alia Vox release, it's literally like listening to these classics for the first time. Don’t you wish you could go back to the first time you heard Beethoven’s Ninth?
Jordi Savall may have undertaken years of music instruction in prestigious institutions, but his story is just as DIY as any you’re likely to come across. In 1998, dissatisfied with the major label system, he set out on his own to create Alia Vox (Latin for "Another Voice") — a home for his own performances of the music that he loved. That music can easily be deemed “Early Music,” but the definition of the term has been the subject of debate. Savall weighs in: “(Early Music) is when you use original instruments, techniques and perform in the original style.”
Savall has been performing in that original style for more than thirty years. As a boy, his love for music began as a member of a local boys choir, but it was his later work with the cello that piqued his interest in Early Music. “I was playing cello, and playing not only normal repertoire, but pieces by Bach, Marais, Simpson, that were not so often played. Music that was originally written for the viola da gamba. Later I realised this was a very nice instrument too,” he said in an interview in 2000.
New Yorker critic Alex Ross heard Savall's work on this “very nice instrument” and hailed it as “genius,” while the Boston Globe called Savall's group, Hespèrion XX, “the embodiment of musical perfection.” But it wasn’t always this way. The viola da gamba, unlike most other instruments, doesn’t come with a number of teachers ready to impart their wisdom. In fact, at the time that he was learning it, Savall relied just as much on texts from the eras in which they were used (the Renaissance and Baroque periods) as the advice of current masters. Both were scarce, though — and Savall says that he owes much of his education simply to playing the instrument: “You find [the technique] in the music itself,” he says.
For years, Savall played in relative obscurity — only well known among Early Music aficionados. That, however, changed, with Savall’s 1991 score to Tous les matins du monde, which went on to sell more than a million copies worldwide. The film tells the story of Marin Marais (played by Gérard Depardieu), one of the best viol players and composers of the 17th century, and his teacher Sainte Colombe. The soundtrack and film’s enormous success changed everything — for the first time, Savall says, “an audience not made up of specialists” came to hear the music performed on a more regular basis.
As the crowds grew larger and Savall continued to unearth great, “lost” pieces of music to present, the idea of creating a label became more and more enticing. Free from the shackles of release schedules, Savall would be able to release as much as he wanted — and to retain creative control over the next phase of his career.
Among the best releases on the label is Ostinato, made with Hespèrion XXI (the successor to Hespèrion XX) — the group normally includes his wife, soprano Montserrat Figueras, but here she’s absent from the proceedings as Savall winds his improvisatory gamba playing through some stunning compositions originally penned by Henry Purcell, Johann Pachelbel and a version of “Greensleeve to a Ground.” On the latter, you can hear much of what makes Savall great: at nearly nine minutes, he goes from patient beginnings through to a tour de force middle portion, and ends the piece with an achingly beautiful coda. The melody to "Greensleeves" rarely bears this much repetition, but Savall seems to wring a different emotion or color out of the simple tune each time around.
When asked to explain the appeal of Early Music, Savall thinks for a moment and comes up with a simple answer, “There’s a human dimension to this music — something you just don’t hear that often anymore.” It sounds almost naïve at first, but when you think about it — and, more importantly, when you listen to it — Savall’s statement makes complete sense. Much of what Savall tends to play is so rarely performed that each time you press "play" on an Alia Vox release, it's literally like listening to these classics for the first time. Don’t you wish you could go back to the first time you heard Beethoven’s Ninth?
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