Traquen’art presents
Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI

Fantasies, battles and dances, the golden age of consort music

September 27, 2022

November 7, 2022, at 7:30 pm will be the occasion of an anticipated return of Jordi Savall to North America at the Maison symphonique de Montréal, for a musical incursion into the splendour of the Renaissance, a key musical period for the emergence of the viola de gamba and the viola consort.

A consort of instruments was an expression used in England during the 16th and 17th centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could be of the same or a variety of instruments. It can be used today to designate certain types of formations practicing an aspect of early music up to baroque music.

A world of discoveries

For the pleasure of all music lovers, Jordi Savall will perform with his ensemble Hespèrion XXI, a European program entitled Fantasies, Battles and Dances – The Golden Age of Consort Music (1500 – 1750), a collection of works by 15 important composers from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods.

Here are the composers, in alphabetical order: Innociento Alberti, Johann Sebastian Bach, Joan Cabanilles, Antonio de Cabezón, John Dowland, Alfonso Ferrabosco, Orlando Gibbons, Giuseppe Guami, John Jenkins, William Lawes, Giovanni Maria, Henry Pucell, Samuel Scheidt, Christopher Tye and by Clement Woodcock.

Jordi Savall

Jordi Savall – Photo: David Ignaszewski

Jordi Savall is an exceptional figure in today’s music world. His career as a concert performer, teacher, researcher and creator of new musical and cultural projects, makes him one of the principal architects of the current revaluation of historical music. His task, which has earned him world renown and which is always brimming with live emotion and spectacular creative vitality, is one in which he has always sought to be faithful to historical music, which is to say the reappraisal of the value of repertoires as specific and as universal as the music of Europe, the Mediterranean and of the whole world.

Jordi Savall began his musical studies when he was six years old as a singer in the Children’s Choir in Igualada (Catalonia), his hometown, and then went on to learn the cello, completing his studies at the Barcelona Conservatory (1964). In 1965 he started, as an autodidact, to study the viola da gamba and early music, following with advanced studies in 1968 at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Switzerland).

His three ensembles Hespèrion XXI (1974), La Capella Reial de Catalunya (1987) and Le Concert des Nations (1989), were all founded together with Montserrat Figueras. Jordi Savall has explored and fashioned a universe full of emotions and beauty and has projected it to the world and to millions of music lovers, to introduce the viola da gamba and the music which had fallen into oblivion, becoming one of the most important protectors of the early music.

With his key contribution to Alain Corneau’s film Tous les Matins du Monde (winner of a César best-soundtrack award), his busy concert life (over 140 concerts a year) and recording schedule (6 recordings a year), and with the creation of his own record label Alia Vox (1998), he demonstrates that the early music does not have to be necessary elitist, so it can be very interesting for a public each time younger and more numerous.

Hespèrion XXI

With a repertoire that encompasses the period between the 10th and 18th centuries, Hespèrion XXI searches continuously for new points of union between the East and West, with a clear desire for integration and for the recovery of international musical heritage, especially that of the Mediterranean basin and with links to the New World.

In 1974 Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras, together with Lorenzo Alpert and Hopkinson Smith, founded the ancient music ensemble in Basel as a way of recovering and disseminating the rich and fascinating musical repertoire prior to the 19th century on the basis of historical criteria and the use of original instruments.

Photo courtesy of Hespèrion XXI

Today Hespèrion XXI is central to the understanding of the music of the period between the Middle Ages and the Baroque. Their labours to recover works, scores, instruments and unpublished documents have a double and incalculable value. On one hand, their rigorous research provides new information and understanding about the historical knowledge of the period, and on the other hand, the exquisite performances enable people to freely enjoy the aesthetic and spiritual delicacy of the works of this period.

Right from the beginning, Hespèrion XXI set out on a clearly innovative and artistic course that would lead to the establishment of a school in the field of ancient music because they conceived, and continue to conceive, ancient music as an experimental musical tool and with it, they seek the maximum beauty and expressiveness in their performances.

Thanks to the outstanding work of numerous musicians and collaborators who have worked with the ensemble over all these years, Hespèrion XXI still plays a key role in the recovery and reappraisal of the musical heritage, one that has great resonance throughout the world. The group has published more than 60 CDs and performs concerts for the whole world, appearing regularly at the great international festivals of ancient music.

Concert program

Eustache du Caurroy (1549-1609)
Fantaisies sur Une jeune fillete

Christopher Tye (ca.1505-ca.1573)
In Nomine XII Crye

John Dowland (1563-1626)
Semper Dowland semper dolens

John Dowland
The King of Denmark’s Galliard

Giovanni Maria Trabaci (1575-1647)Durezze e ligature

Giuseppe Guami (ca.1540-ca.1611)
Canzon 4 Sopra La Battaglia

Clement Woodcock (1540-1590)
Browning my dear

Matthew Locke (1621-1677)
Fantasie 5 in D minor (2nd Suite)

William Brade (1560-1630)
Ein Schottisch Tanz

Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)
Canzon O Nachbar Roland

Alfonso Ferrabosco (1575-1628)
Four-note Pavane

Anthony Holborne (1545-1602) [Galliard:] The Fairie-Round

William Lawes (1602-1645)
Paven V in C major

Samuel Scheidt
Galliard Battaglia

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1543-1604)
Passacaille

Joan Cabanilles (1644-1712)
Obertura – Corrente italiana

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)
Fantasia upon one note

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Contrapunctus 1 – Contrapunctus 9 alla

Jordi Savall, pardessus de viole
Philippe Pierlot, dessus de viole
Anna Lachegyi, tenor viol
Juan Manuel Quintana, bass viol
Xavier Puertas, violone
Enrike Solinis, theorbo and guitar

Direction: Jordi Savall

TICKETS

for concerts in 3 cities:

MONTREAL
November 7, 2022 at  7:30 pm
Maison symphonique
1600 Saint-Urbain Street, Montreal
514 842-2112 – 1 877 641-6040

QUEBEC CITY
November 6, 2022 at 3 pm
Palais Montcalm
995 place d’Youville, Quebec City
418 641-6040 – 1 866 842-2112

OTTAWA*
November 8, 2022 at 7:30 pm
Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre
355 Cooper Street, Ottawa
613 241-0777 ext. 505

* Concert presented by Traquen’Art and Music & Beyond

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Feature image: Hervé Pouyfourcat

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