Arts & Events

On Thursday, November 10, perennial favourite Jordi Savall returned to Berkeley under the auspices of Cal Performances. This time, Jordi Savall performed with Hespèrion XXI, the early music ensemble he and his late wife, Montserrat Figueras, founded in 1974 as Hespèrion XX. At the turn of the 21st century, this group became Hespèrion XXI. Currently, it is comprised of Jordi Savall performing on pardessus de viol, Philippe Pierlot on bass and treble viol, Anna Lachegyi on tenor viol, Juan Manuel Quintana on bass viol, Xavier Puertas on violone, and Enrique Solinis on theorbo and guitar. At this Berkeley concert, Mélisande Corriveau, a French-Canadian musician living in the US, substituted for the indisposed Anna Lachegyi. At the close of this concert, Ms Corriveau was singled out for special thanks by Jordi Savall for her last-minute preparation and scintillating performance. 

The theme of this concert was The Golden Age of the Viol Consort, traced from 1550 to 1750. 

As program notes pointed out, this was an age of counterpoint, that is, the art of making superimposed melodic lines sing, apparently independent of one another… so each line can be heard clearly within a coherent whole. For this concert, Jordi Savall chose to perform works from various musical cultures: French, English, Italian, Spanish, and German. Among the early works here performed, the highlight was provided by English composer John Dowland’s (1563-1626) work entitled The King of Denmark’s Galliard. This was an incredibly lively, totally infectious work of great warmth and enthusiasm. Closing out this program’s first group of works, this may well have been the highlight of the entire concert.  

As the concert progressed, we traced the development of counterpoint in Viol Consorts through the centuries. There were lively offerings by composers Giuseppe Guami (1540-1611), Mathew Locke (1621-1677), William Brade (1560-1630), Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), and Alfonso Ferrabosco (1575-1628). Ultimately, the composer who assimilated all the many centuries worth of counterpoint was, of course, none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. This concert saluted Bach by closing with two of the works from Bach’s Art of the Fugue, or Contrapunctus.  

After tumultuous applause from the appreciative Berkeley audience, two encores were added to the printed program. The first was by William Brede, entitled Der Satyrn Tanz, which featured much pizzicato from the musicians. The second was the Spanish-inflected rhythmic work Galliarde napolitana by A. Valente. This latter work involved much improvisation from the ever-inventive Jordi Savall. It made a wonderful close to a wonderful concert.