This release gets the full treatment from
Jordi Savall's label,
Alia Vox, with the usual elaborate book (the booklet is not a strong enough word) and graphics.
Savall fans should, therefore, note that the album doesn't contain new music from
Savall. Instead, the
Savall performances are drawn from his catalog (it would have been nice to see a listing of exactly which albums), with some of the recordings dating back as far as the
Hesperion XX era. What is new about the album is the group of contemporary compositions paired with the
Savall recordings, performed by pianist
Diego Fernández Magdaleno. The album is billed as a set of "tribute reflections," and all the modern pieces are not just based generally on
Savall's brand of largely but never exclusively Iberian Renaissance music but respond, with greater or lesser specificity, to the specific recordings. This is fascinating for a number of reasons, the first being that contemporary composition based on Renaissance music is not that common in general. The
Lachrimae Antiquae of
José Maria García Laborda, based on
Savall's recording of the
similarly titled work of
John Dowland, announces the freshness of the whole project. Second, although
Savall is certainly not neglected in the rest of the world, the admiration for him in Iberia is on a whole different level. The composers here will be new to most listeners outside the region, and their responses to the music are varied and individual. The final pair of Tombeau, Marin Marais' famous one for the elusive
M. de Sainte-Colombe and
Josep Soler's for, of all people,
Oscar Wilde, suggests the depth of the impulse being explored here. Altogether new and unexpected, this release offers an intriguing glimpse into a novel aspect of the
Savall phenomenon. ~ James Manheim
