The audience at the Maison symphonique gave a memorable ovation to Jordi Savall and his musicians at the end of their concert on Saturday, a true plea for tolerance and peace, concluding with a touching arrangement of “Amazing Grace” for the encore.
It was particularly interesting for us to end the week with a concert by Jordi Savall, following a week in the company of Jeremy Dutcher and the musicians of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
Dutcher builds, through palpable musical dialogue across time, as voices captured on wax rolls 115 years ago echo over increasingly complex sounds produced on stage, a call for tolerance, peace, and love in respect of history, tradition, and the elders.
On the whole, with Jordi Savall, the means are different, as he is even more universalist, but the goal and the motivations are the same: to learn and draw from history. Strangely, as an unintentional nod to Jeremy Dutcher, the most powerful moment of “Song, Battles, and Dances of the Ancient and New World, 1110-1780” was the opening of the final part, with the prayer and traditional isiXhosa spiritual song, “Indodana,” where in a darkened room the singers gathered in a circle as if in a ritual.
The Xhosa people are an important ethnic group in South Africa for whom spirituality melds Christianity with profound respect for ancestors, seen as mediators with the divine. “Indodana” (the son) is the most emblematic song of a Xhosa civilization that resisted colonization. The song conveys this strength and resilience. In the articulation of the concert in four parts, the slave songs that opened each of them revealed this truth; reminding us of the weight of oppression, calling for resilience, and opening up to hope for a better future.
Plans thwarted
It should be noted that the concert presented on Saturday was not as initially conceived, as the visas of musicians from Venezuela, Cuba, and others were not granted for the North American tour. We are only at the beginning of a cultural cancer that will continue to gnaw at us for years. Another stigmatizing event: Philippe Jaroussky and his Ensemble Artaserse recently canceled their concert in Quebec for May due to visa issues as well. The thematic “Routes of Slavery, Volume II” had to be downsized due to defections, but the program was rearranged with great artistry, highlighting the importance of musical dramaturgy in the flow of a concert. The slave songs primarily alluded to an instrumental interlude, a moment of contemplation or reflection, then to a space of dialogue between the Ancient and the New World, each part ending with South American baroque music, thus concluding on a positive note of exuberance.
One of the lessons from the concert by Jordi Savall and his musicians is not to give up on exploring South American baroque music. It is a colorful and engaging repertoire, with deep works like the litany “Jaya llånch, Jaya lléch” from the “Codex Trujillo.” New ensembles have taken the reins in exploring this music, such as the Alkymia Ensemble led by Mariana Delgadillo Espinoza, whom we recently heard at the Misteria Paschalia Festival in Krakow.
On Saturday, the artists invited by La Capella Reial and Hespèrion XXI all rose to the occasion; the Canadian Neema Bickersteth, the Frenchman from Guadeloupe Yannis François, and the two Mexicans Ada Coronel and Ulises Martinez. To create an atmosphere of ceremony or ritual at the event, Jordi Savall discreetly led the group from the left side of the stage, playing a soprano viola, not hesitating to enhance the polyphonies of Josquin des Prés with bell sounds and utilizing clever positioning of the musicians. The idea of a circle of singers was used several times before the Xhosa song, notably during the magnificent Armenian prayer “El pan de la aflicción,” with five male voices, indicating from the first part that we were part of a concert out of the ordinary.
