Jordi Savall’s latest release on his own Alia Vox label charts two centuries of musical madness in the shape of the folia (which can mean anything from ‘wild amusement’ to ‘insanity’). The earliest references to the folia are to a Portuguese dance of popular origin that by the end of the fifteenth century had become still more popular in court circles. Its distinctively minimalist harmonic patterns, but on only four different chords, make it a perfect vehicle for instrumental jam sessions in the renaissance and it is this improvisatory tradition that is explored by Savall and his team.
Virtuosity is a sine qua non in the folia business and Savall, of course, is an established virtuoso. Allied to this, is his ability to make the music seem as spontaneous and full of fantasy as the improvisatory practice from which the endless chameleon-like variations by Corelli and Marais sprang. These works are well known to all aficionados of baroque music; less familiar is the set of diferencias by the Spanish composer Antonio Martin y Coll, although he is almost equally inventive. Here Savall chooses to emphasize the Iberian origin of the folia, with an accompaniment of triple harp, baroque guitar and castanets which he describes as being ‘in keeping with the characteristic Iberian sound of the period.’ Such a sound world may well have more to do with late twentieth-century preconceptions than historical fact and the castanets seem lost and uncertain in these elaborate, sophisticated variations.
Savall’s re-creations of the early folia (the group of pieces by Enzina, Cabezon and Ortiz) are much freer still; indeed, his version of Rodrigo Martinez, a dance-song from the Cancionero Musical de Palacio, is so exuberant in its percussionization that my seven-year-old son suggested that fireworks were being let off by way of an accompaniment! Still, Savall’s attempt to trace an important improvisatory tradition is fascinating and it is a tribute to his musical imagination that the ear never tires of those four chords in almost an hour’s music. Some listeners may, however, find his improvised humming along as he plays more intrusive than endearingly eccentric, so be warned!'