Hespèrion XXI

THAT SAVALL FOLK The Spanish violist began Hespèrion in 1974.

Some records just sound better after the sun’s gone down. Pascal Rogé’s somnambulant recording of Satie’s piano works comes to mind. The Kyung-wha Chung–Radu Lupu duet of Franck’s Violin Sonata in A is another. Now there’s this nicely packaged little retrospective of viola de gambist Jordi Savall’s twilight collaborations with his early-music group Hespèrion XXI, largely drawn from the sounds on his ten-year-old label Alia Vox. Most of the music was recorded between the hours of 1am and 4am to capture the nocturnal silence surrounding these musicians, and the sounds here do seem to stand magically still.

With a compelling combo of Savall’s older and newer material, including both early and modern music ranging from Purcell to Pärt, this is one of the Catalan superstar’s most ambitious discs to date. Though Savall intentionally selected these works to capture “sleep, night and mourning,” the collection doesn’t lack a pulse. Anthony Holborne’s “Lullabie” gambols about like an English pub song, and Savall’s take on a traditional Sephardic tune whips into a fiery little jam.

Savall also conducts the period-instrument orchestra Le Concert des Nations in the funeral march from Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony. If Beethoven’s been exaggerated and redefined by the modern orchestra, this expertly tempered performance is a welcome blast from the past. One puzzler here is the cut from Savall’s son, vocalist Ferran, whose pleasantly poppy riff on Marin Marais’s Les Voix Humaines seems out of place next to Mozart, Monteverdi and Mussorgsky. Even so, two complete discs with Savall’s influence all over them are always a good thing.

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