Jordi Savall - Marin Marais: Pieces de Viole des Cinq Livres (1975-1983) [2011 SACD]

Between 1975 and 1983, Jordi Savall recorded five albums including the most beautiful pieces from each of the five ‘Books of Pieces for the Viol’ composed by Marin Marais between 1686 and 1725. A silence of nearly 250 years came to an end. A repertoire - and even better, an instrument - returned from oblivion.
The memory of a composer had never been so closely linked to the performing art of amusician. 35 years after the beginning of this history-making enterprise, the five Astree albums are offered in a remastered sound, that fully rewards the genius of Marin Marais and Jordi Savall. Luxuriously documented – as always with Alia Vox - this anthology is a must-have for any Baroque music lover.
...The present recording offers a Suite, a series of variations and a character piece, all taken from the Second Livre, which appeared in 1701. Marin Marais perfectly illustrates that fondness for contrast that characterises the music of the Baroque era. We find it in the variations in dynamics, between the forte and piano and in tempi, where slow passages are linked to quick ones without transition. Variety of colour is provided by the multiple possibilities afforded by the full gamut of the instrument’s registers and the ways in which it can be played; at the same time, its polyphonic “voices” allow us to hear a voluble upper part with a quiet lower one, or vice versa. The “jeu de mélodie” and the “jeu d’harmonie” compete and alternate in the pieces in the Suite: according to the theorist Jean Rousseau, the player should sometimes “imitate everything charming and agreeable that the voice can do”, with “tenderness” and “delicacy”, and sometimes sustain several independent voices at once, which requires “great aptitude” and “plenty of practice”. He may also combine melody and harmony in a finished style in which the chords, far from inhibiting the movement of the top line, give it foundation and richness. In the thirty-two couplets of the Folies d’Espagne (an old Iberian dance), Marais especially exploits writing in “broken chords”: over a slow-moving bass line, he superimposes a mosaic of quick notes in scales or arpeggios. At times the music seems to flow of its own accord, in keeping with the traditional dances of the period, while at others its unexpected modulations and suspensions go so far as to suggest that the performer is improvising. The Tombeau pour Monsieur de Lully in particular strikes us as surprisingly modern...

Tracks:


Disc 1:
Premier Livre de pieces de Viole (1686), Pieces a deux violes (with Christophe Coin) – recorded 1978
SUITE EN RÉ MINEUR - 19:44
CHACONNE EN SOL MAJEUR - 7:13
SUITE EN SOL MAJEUR - 24:56


Disc 2:
Deuxieme Livre de pieces de viole (1701) – recorded 1975
FOLIES D’ESPAGNE, II. 20 - 18:20
LES VOIX HUMAINES, II. 63 - 5:18
SUITE EN SI MINEUR - 26:54


Disc 3:
Troisieme Livre de pieces de viole (1711) – recorded 1983
SUITE I EN LA MINEUR - 19:13
SUITE IV EN RE MAJEUR - 16:53
SUITE VII EN SOL MAJEUR - 26:06


Disc 4:
Quatrieme Livre de pieces de viole (1717) – recorded 1977
SUITTE D’UN GOUT ETRANGER - 48:11


Disc 5:
Cinquieme Livre de pieces de viole (1725) – recorded 1983
SUITE EN SOL MINEUR - 26:48
SUITE EN MI MINEUR / MAJEUR - 23:51

Personnel:

JORDI SAVALL, basse de viole
TON KOOPMAN, clavecin
HOPKINSON SMITH, théorbe & guitare
CHRISTOPHE COIN, basse de viole (1er Livre)
ANNE GALLET, clavecin (2ème Livre)