Istanbul -

Hespèrion XXI / Jordi Savall

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‘Istanbul’
Cantemir The Book of Science of Music, and the Sephardic and Armenian musical traditions
Kudsi Erguner ney Derya Türkan, Gaguik Mouradian kamas Yurdal Tokcan oud Fahrettin Yarkın perc Murat Salim Tokaç, Haroun Taboul tanburs Hakan Güngör kanun Georgi Minassyan duduk Haïg Sarikouyomdjian duduk/ney
Hespèrion XXI / Jordi Savall
Alia Vox AVSA9870 (73’ • DDD)

Savall crosses cultural barriers but the results are anything but ‘crossover’

On tour in Istanbul, Jordi Savall was given a copy of the first modern edition of a music collection assembled by Dimitrie Cantemir (1672-1723), a Moldavian nobleman who spent 23 years there as an exile. A fascinating polymath, Cantemir played the tanbur, a plucked string instrument, and devised a notation system with which to transcribe the music from the many different cultures that co-existed in the Ottoman capital, thus providing the only written evidence of an orally transmitted repertory. In this exclusively instrumental programme, Savall’s regular troupe is joined by Armenian, Greek, Israeli, Moroccan, and Turkish musicians. This is crossover in the most “authentic” sense, if you will.

As Savall notes himself, these makam encompass a range of rhythmic patterns that, though not unknown, were largely unused in the Western classical tradition of the time: 14/4, 10/8, even 48/4. The result is a very polished, sophisticated sound world largely lacking the exuberance that one might expect, at least on occasion, from such repertories; but that in itself is a cue to the listener (or to this listener, at any rate) that our expectation of non-Western musics are easily confounded. Of the project’s worth there’s no doubt, and Savall’s many fans will doubtless be willing to follow him wherever he goes. They should be aware, however, that it leaves the realm of early music behind. Fabrice Fitch