Two little-known Arvo Part premieres


Pärt, Byrd, Mussorgsky, Reger, de Falla, Milhaud, Garcia Lorca and anon are a pretty remarkable mix for any playlist. They are even more remarkable as the tracklisting for a CD by stereotyped 'early music specialists' Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras. Their 2002 album Ninna Nanna was linked from yesterday's post and that prompted me to listen to it again last night. (With Petreoc Trelawny fronting the BBC Prom on Radio 3, Figueras and Savall followed by silence was a no brainer.) That composer line up is pretty special, and the fact that two of the Arvo Pärt pieces were commissioned for the album makes it even more special. But what is equally noteworthy is the discrete cultural activism of a disc that presents lullabies from across the cultures that developed under the three great monotheistic traditions. Yet another example of the Savall family rearranging the geometry of heaven.

* Dedicated Savall watchers should note the performance of Elogie de la folie: Erasme de Rotterdam et son temps (The Praise of Folly: Erasmus of Rotterdam and his times) at La Cité de la Musique in Paris on Dec 11, 2011; presumably Alia Vox's next big book and disc project.

Am I the only one to think that the sales of this gorgeous album may have been limited by the lovingly designed but overpoweringly noir sleeve with its Picasso image? Ninna Nanna was bought by me. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk Also on Facebook and Twitter.

Comments

Pliable said…
New interview in French with Jordi Savall here - http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/musique/jordi-savall-ou-les-liens-du-son_1011562.html

Fallible machine translation here - http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lexpress.fr%2Fculture%2Fmusique%2Fjordi-savall-ou-les-liens-du-son_1011562.html

iTunes podcast of my 2008 radio interview (in English!) here -
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=269102376
2:30 pm
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