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Reviewer:
Richard Lawrence Jordi Savall has established a huge reputation as a gamba player and as a director of ensembles, including the two listed above. This recording shows him branching out into something new. It's listed as "Musique de Jordi Savall" but the reality is more complicated. The origin of the project was a concert devised to complement an exhibition of paintings by Caravaggio at the Museum of Catalan Art in Barcelona. The programme is divided into seven "stanzas", each containing four or five items. There are seven Lachrimae, and scattered among the "stanzas" are two Planctus Caravaggio, four Cantus Caravaggio, four Deplarationes and a few isolated numbers. Some of these last are by Renaissance or Baroque composers, and it's a particular pleasure to hear the gravely beautiful viols of Hesperion XXI in Gesualdo and Trabaci. Most of the other pieces are variations or treatments by Savall of "a melody based on popular elements from the period". This theme, which rises, turns back on itself and leaps upwards, is heard at the outset on the flute in Cantus Caravaggio I ; and that is how we hear it, 30 tracks later, fading into nothingness in Cantus Caravaggio IV. This is haunting; but the journey is long, and the byways not really worth exploring. All but one of the Lacchrimae are improvisations, played by a core group of four. Anchored by a pedal point on the bass viol and accompanied by the harp, the violin and treble viol weave patterns in a manner that comes perilously close to doodling. Even less gripping are the wordless Deplorationes 5, also improvised, intoned by Ferran Savall. As mood music on an audio guide at an exhibition: yes, if you like that kind of thing. But I doubt it would repay repeated listening at home. |
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