On Jordi Savall

Jordi Savall is a real gem. Someone who I have come to love to listen to now, whether in interviews or in his musical prowess. He is so knowledgeable and profoundly talented.

He is able to bring the era to life. It’s like looking at paintings and art, visually obviously, and having the same feeling when you listen to the era music by him:

https://youtu.be/_LOF_UzUkoo?t=3786

I do not much care for the prelude sections, personally, but the celebratory tone of the latter parts of the smaller piece within the larger album gives that feeling. He is able, apparently through extensive research, able to capture a period of time and then to convey this to a modernist sensibility.

One interviewer from a Glenn Gould foundation or organization made this part of the title of the interview with him. Savall is a gem not merely for his productivity, but for his accuracy and fidelity to the music of the time presented to the current period.

His has been noted as producing ‘authentically generic’ Beethoven, but his Beethoven sounds like everyone’s in many ways because those have been done so much and so well. He is able to do this, in a non-sarcastic tone, with other periods and other composers and music.

Savall is a master.

Photo by Johannes Krupinski on Unsplash