Bosphorus Blends

This disk by Jordi Savall could be looked upon as a companion to the project on Jerusalem. This time the city is Istanbul, with particular consideration given to the writings and music passed down from the 18th century by Moldovan prince Dimitri Cantemir in his Book of the Science of Music. This time, the release is on a single disk without the lavish book presentation but there are still copious booklet notes. It is also a single disk this time and is entirely instrumental with Hesperion XXI joined by musicians from Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon etc. If there were still such things as record stores, they would have done well to file this under world or early music rather than classical. The pieces come from the Sephardic Jewish and Armenian traditions with fine playing on such instruments as oud, kamacheh, ney and duduk. It's good that it seems no longer necessary to explain what these instruments are and to compare them with western equivalents. These improvisational pieces are contrasted with more through composed dance pieces from the Turkish court and the Sufi dervish tradition. It is interesting to ponder and compare the differing attitude of tolerance and co-existence displayed in Istanbul through much of its existence with the continual strife in Jerusalem. Both recorded projects by Savall and his ensembles are worthy of close study however.

A Tale Of Two Cities In One

Another lavish book style release of two cd's by Jordi Savall is this one titled Jerusalem : The Town of the Two Peaces - Earthly Peace and Celestial Peace. As the book and the music on the disks illustrate, the history of the city is sadly and continually at odds with this concept and ideal. But it is another superbly put together project featuring Savall's Hesperion XXI and La Capella Real de Catalunya with guest appearances from featured singers and musicians and particularly the ensemble Al-Darwish from Galilee. The music is divided into segments, beginning with the apocalyptic associations with Jerusalem, then moving chronologically through history and the domination variously of Jewish, Crusader, Arab and Ottoman cultures, sections on the city as a place of pilgrimage for these various groups and also as a place to be exiled from. The final segment brings these strands together as a combination of the contributing musicians and as a beacon and symbol of hope for some peaceful settlement in our time. Riding over all however is the musical excellence contained herein. Folk and sacred elements combine and the whole makes a convincing drama. I particularly enjoyed the lively Crusader hymns and folk songs but the melancholic overall feel of the majority of the music is the lasting memory. We all know that musicians and ordinary people can c-exist peacefully and in harmony but how to convince politicians and religious leaders ?

Seperated More In Time Than Style

Two violin concertos make up this month's free cd offering from BBC Music magazine. I was going to call them two contrasting violin concertos since they were written over two hundred years apart but in fact they do not really inhabit radically different sound worlds. First up is Mozart's Violin Concerto No 4 played by Hilary Hahn and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis at the Last Night of the Proms in 2000. It is a well remembered performance and although there are not too many virtuosic fireworks, it is worthy of the esteem in which it is held. I do have another commercial recording of this work but the other piece featured on the disk is my only copy. It is Korngold's Violin Concerto, again with the BBC Symphony this time conducted by Jiri Belohlavek with the orchestra's leader Andrew Haveron as soloist. It is a romantic work with plenty of melody, written after WW2 but with no obvious reference to the traumas of that period. It is hard to resist the temptation to say that it often sounds like film music. But of course, Korngold instigated that tradition and style of film music in the early days of the talkies in Hollywood and is really only staying true to his musical roots. Haveron's performance more than stands comparison with Hahn's in the Mozart.

One Offs, Even If They Founded A Genre

Another elderly rock album to revisit is the eponymous first album by Led Zeppelin. I saw them live on two or three occasions at festivals around 1969 / 70 and each time was irritated by them and the adulation that they received. I was going through a blues purist phase and they weren't Fleetwood Mac or Chicken Shack, I thought they were pulling the blues around far too much and being self indulgent in crowd pleasing pyrotechnics. I gradually realised that I was missing the point, Zeppelin never were a blues band nor anything like it, even if some band members particularly Robert Plant held a great affection for the genre. There are two more or less straight blues renditions on this first album but they are the weakest tracks. Those two tracks and the two short bursts of Good Times Bad Times and Communication Breakdown, which betray the band's origins as the New Yardbirds, are the kind of things often found on a first album but the way the band was to develop is already fully formed with the folky Black Mountain Side and the thundering Dazed and Confused and How Many More Times. As is often the case, Led Zep were far more musical and innovative than the myriad of copyists that sprung up in their wake and took the lowest common denominator from their sound.