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Reviewer: Julie Anne
Sadie ‘The Celtic Viol’ Includes traditional Irish and Scottish pieces, selections from from Ryan’s Mammoth Collection, William Marshall’s 1822 Collection, Captain Simon Fraser’s 1816 Collection, H Playford’s Dancing Master 1696 and works by Gow, Laybourn Macpherson and O’Carolan Jordi Savall viol Andrew Lawrence-King hp Alia Vox F Í AVSA9865 (76’ • DDD/DSD) After a career spanning four decades, Jordi Savall still thirsts after new repertoire from the past and deeper musical insights. A breadth of musicianship and keen sense of humanity have enabled him to become a master of both courtly and common performing practices. This recording demonstrates how fine the line between them can sometimes be. Elizabethan and Jacobean viol-players improvised divisions on ground basses and it is our good fortune that examples and descriptions were written down (though there is still more we would wish to know). Much of the most popular instrumental music of that day – folk airs, dances, laments – was solely passed down from player to player, at least until some of the tunes found their way into printed collections. Playing on five- and six-string treble viols and a five-string treble fiddle, Savall draws inspiration from the effects harvested from live and recorded performances. As always, his own playing is ravishingly beautiful and deeply poetic. He is joined on some tracks by Andrew Lawrence-King who delicately improvises counterpoint and accompaniments over drones on an Irish harp and psalterium. The repeated sections of the dances (reels) demand variation; elsewhere the music is strophic, even rhetorical, the changing implications of the “story” giving rise to different ornamentation. There is also remarkable virtuoso display, especially in the quicker pieces, as one would expect. For Savall, this recording is intended as “a fervent tribute to the art of transmission”, but therein lies the rub. This music stems from a living tradition, which has changed with the times, gathering fresh inspiration and wider influences. Savall brings to it a highly informed historical perspective but to some ears he may have blurred the distinctions, gentrifying a folk tradition. A thought-provoking recording. |
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