Jordi Savall, the historian of medieval music

Thursday melodies - Alexandre Wälti

Music makes history, and vice versa. The back-and-forth between musical past and present is infinite. Jordi Savall has gone one step further, seizing on the painful history of slavery to compose the project The Routes Of Slavery. An encounter between African instruments, sacred and popular Spanish and Portuguese songs and extracts from historical texts.

The Spanish conductor was a long-time choral conductor and shared the life of opera singer Montserrat Figueras until the latter's death. His interest in the vocal arts therefore seems obvious. In the past, he has already placed voices at the center of his compositions, as in the excellent Granada Eterna.

In this previous project, he honored Arabic songs and music on the occasion of the millennium of Granada, Andalusia. He invited listeners to take a musical journey through time, from the founding of the kingdom of Granada (1013) to its integration into the kingdom of Castilla y León (1526).

The composer takes a similar gamble with The Routes Of Slavery except that it covers a period between 1444 and 1888, from the beginnings of slavery to the year of Brazil's Golden Law - Brazil having been the last country to abolish slavery by the signature of Empress Isabelle.

The kora of Mali's Ballaké Sissoko meets the percussion of Brazil's Luis Nascimento. Mohammed Diaby's voice mingles with that of Colombian Leopoldo Novoa and the instrumentations of the Mexican chamber orchestra Tembembe Ensamble Continuo.

As you'll have gathered, there's a wealth of music here to serve the duty of remembrance. When blood becomes reconciling sounds. When African, Latin American and European music come together to revisit history and build bridges between cultures.

Check it out, as the project is available for free listening on this link.

Write to the author: alexandre.waelti@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Capture d'écran YouTube