WQXR/Carnegie Hall: Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations

On Thursday evening WQXR, New York's clasical music station, broadcast from Zankel Hall a recital of French Baroque music that featured famed musicologist Jordi Savall and his ensemble Le Concert des Nations performing on original instruments.  The program essentially reprised the soundtrack of the 1991 film Tous les matins du monde for which Mr. Savall, a virtuoso viol pleayer, was awarded the French Academy Award for music.

I saw the film Tous les matins du monde when it was first released, but after the passage of more than a quarter century I have to admit I cannot recall it in any great detail even though I remember having enjoyed seeing it a great deal.  The storyline, romantic subplot aside, dealt primarily with the problematical relationship between the seventeenth century composer Jean de Sainte-Colombe, an acknowledged master of the viol, and the young Marin Marais who would go on to surpass his teacher as a composer for that same instrument.

In addition to the music of the two composers mentioned above, the program also contained works by other masters of the French Baroque, such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Marie Leclair, the last eventually murdered in a truly sensational manner.  (The full program can be seen on WQXR's website at the link shown in the final paragraph.)  Perhaps the most important figure of the French Baroque, however, was neither a professional musician nor composer but rather the ruler who made their accomplishments possible.  Though Louis XIV undoubtedly patronized the arts in part at least to increase his political prestige, it's certain that he did possess a genuine passion for music.  In addition to participating in court ballets, most notably those composed by Lully, Louis also founded the Royal Academy of Music, forerunner to the Paris Opera, and permanently employed 150 to 200 musicians.  He also created the first large ensemble of viol instruments, the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi, that provided music for court ballets and royal entertainments.  Without Louis's patronage it's doubtful that many of the works on Thursday's program would ever have been composed.

Mr. Savall's performance can only be described as extraordinary.  He managed to impart new vitality to centuries old music and made it as vital and appealing to modern audiences as if it had been written yesterday.  He was ably assisted throughout the performance by the excellent musicianship of  his associates in Le Concert des Nations - Manfredo Kraemer, violin, Charles Zebley, flute, Philippe Pierlot, bass viol, Daniel Swenberg, theorbo, and Luca Guglielmi, harpsichord - all of whom were incredibly adept in the use of period instruments that produce a radically different sound than their modern counterparts.

The archived performance is available for listening on WQXR's website.