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.