ADDA hosts Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations in Elements and Furies

Sometimes a program does not seem attractive. Since I generally prefer more modern sounds, particularly contemporary music, a program that lives in the first half of the eighteenth century is not likely to attract, let alone promise something memorable.

I doubt that my tastes are not the norm amongst most concert audiences who tend to recoil at the thought of contemporary music being played. “Where are the tunes?” they ask.” Do you call that harmony?” I think, but never actually say in response, just listen. Just open up and hear if the composer has anything to say! And never mind the quality, just feel the width. There are textures and sounds that tunes would hide! Can't you feel it? It’s not a question I tend to ask of the eighteenth century, however, since to me so much of the music is all gloss, all decoration. At least that’s the stereotype I often think. And then there was Rebel, and Handel, and Gluck, and finally a clapping Rameau. And so the evening did turn out to be musically memorable.

The pedigree of the performers was beyond doubt. Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations are superstars in their field and a considerable way beyond that as well. They certainly pulled in the crowds, despite their sound being, perhaps, potentially a little small for this auditorium. By the evening’s end, however, one would not have noticed any shortfall.

Jordi Savall has spent a lifetime rediscovering anew old music and establishing a tradition for its performance. He and the orchestra played this program as if they were walking through familiar terrain, but of course the repertoire is vast, and the styles are widely varied. It takes real musicianship, vision, and imagination to bring a program like this to life and these expert performers, did exactly that.

The opening piece was Rebel’s Les Elements. Now this probably surprised anyone expecting wall-to-wall tunes, wrapped in conventional harmony. Written in 1737 and 1738, Rebel’s work was intended to portray the elements of the ancient world, air, fire, earth, and water, or at least their characters and properties in sound. But at the start, the composer wanted to convey Chaos, the disorderly universe as it existed in his imagination before a divine hand had imposed order. With this orchestra, a small band by modern standards, Rebel wanted to convey what a modern mind might hear as a big bang, but he chose to do it subtly, rather than with force. The musical shock of atonal music written early in the eighteenth century is profound. The work progressed, both dramatically and playfully, if not always coherently. The playing was perfect, the overall design somewhat opaque.

Then, we heard music by a German written in Italian style, conceived for a German monarch in England. The first suite of Handel’s Water Music is well known, but deservedly so. Again the opening is a real surprise, with Handel’s melodic and harmonic invention to the fore throughout the piece, which, despite its familiarity, is full of surprises.

Finally, we heard the ballet suite Don Juan ou Le Festin de Pierre (Don Juan, or the Stone Guest's Banquet) by Gluck. The work was listed almost as co-written by Gasparo Angiolini, Gluck’s choreographic collaborator. The work was first performed in 1761 and in it we could hear musical classicism alongside more decorative elements. It was always surprising. The music was vivid, and culminated in Don Juan’s descent into hell with a piece subtitled The Furies. It seemed we had come full circle in that musically we were almost back to the opening of Rebel's The Elements in places. Except that now, it was the power of the musical forces that was being unleashed.

An encore from Rameau was pure romp. In a short introduction, Jordi Savall coached the audience in a five beat twice-given clap to pick out a repeated rhythmic pattern in the work, and the ADDA audience starred by taking the cues in perfect unison. And everyone went home very happy.