Listening to music written centuries ago allows you to travel back in time and even more so if you listen to it within the walls of the Royal Monastery of Santes CreusCistercian abbey erected from the twelfth century. It is precisely there that the second edition of the Jordi Savall Festival culminates this weekend. From Thursday to Monday, for five days, the groups of the famous director and viola player and other groups and performers, some emerging, will offer nine very special concerts. They will take place both inside the monastery church, where the kings of Aragon Pedro III and Jaime II are buried, as well as in the cloisters and the adjacent esplanade.
“Historic buildings create a fabulous spiritual environment and a unique sound in which the harmonics are propagated in another way. They may not allow you to appreciate all the details like in an auditorium, but the experience is very intense,” says Savall, one of the most international and award-winning Catalan musicians, that for half a century has dedicated itself with eagerness to recovering music that has sunk into oblivion. “Bathing in the sea or in a lake is different from doing it in a pool, it will never be the same. The same thing happens with music. In a place like Santes Creus one immerses in it in a different way thanks to everything that surrounds it. In this wonderful place, music takes on another dimension.”
In this second edition of the public festival and artists have already been able to verify it in the concerts held in July at the Church of Santa Maria and the Convent of Sant Francesc in Montblancand in the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet.
Savall’s fascination with Poblet and other magical enclaves on the Cistercian route dates back more than 40 years, when he took a medieval music course. His desire to offer the exact performance conditions as centuries ago have led him to organize similar festivals at Fontfroide Abbey, in France, near Narbonne, where he has also recorded albums, as well as at the Sant Vicenç de Cardona.
In his opinion, “the heritage of Catalunya Sud is a bit forgotten and it’s a shame because it’s wonderful”. Specialist in the recovery of treasures of musical heritage, he hopes to do his bit with this festival to encourage people to discover new experiences outside the usual vacation routes of many music lovers, “who in summer tend to give priority to the Costa Brava and the Cerdanya”.
Savall and his ensembles will perform every day, always at night, when it is expected to cool more. At 81, Savall seems tireless. He really wants to play in Santes Creus. “So many concerts are not a tute, on the contrary, they are a gift for me. Especially considering how complicated airports are and the nightmare that traveling by plane now entails. It will be a pleasure to travel to Santes Creus by car and install five days there to make music, enjoy concerts and conferences”.
The heritage of Catalunya Sud is somewhat forgotten and it is wonderful
The maestro will perform with his different ensembles: Hespèrion XXI (Basel, 1974), an ensemble created to recover music from before the 19th century using historical criteria and original instruments; La Capella Reial de Catalunya (Barcelona 1987), a vocal and instrumental ensemble that performs medieval, Renaissance and baroque music with historical criteria, specializing in Spanish music; and Le Concert des Nations (Paris, 1989), an orchestra with period instruments whose repertoire ranges from Baroque to Romanticism. During the day, in the morning and afternoon there will be performances by young groups –Rêve de l’Iran, the Young Capella Reial de Catalunya, the jubilate Y Said Diabolos– and concerts by the trio of the brilliant Romani violinist and singer TchaLimberger, with a program entitled ‘The gypsy spirit’, and the violinist Lina Tur Bonet with a selection from ‘Las sonatas del rosario’by Heinrich Franz von Biber.
Wide and varied repertoire
The festival, dedicated to peace, will allow exploring different sounds, both religious and secular. In his first concert on Thursday, he will connect leading performers from different Mediterranean countries and cultures in ‘Mare Nostrum’. The opening evening will be dedicated to refugees and immigrants with a program where Christian, Sephardic, Ottoman and Arab-Andalusian music will dialogue.
On Friday the teacher will offer ‘Ignacio de Loyola: exodus and ecstasy’, a program that traces the life of the saint who lived between 1491-1456 and founded the order of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. And on Saturday, the largest stage, located on the esplanade in front of the monastery, with capacity for 600 people, will host the performance with a program that recovers great works such as ‘Music for the royal fireworks’, by Händel which celebrated the Peace of Aachen in 1749. “We have to claim peace with song and the harmony that is created from musical performance,” says Savall, who since 2008 has been the European Union ambassador for intercultural dialogue and UNESCO goodwill ambassador.
These historic buildings create a fabulous spiritual atmosphere and a unique sound where the harmonics propagate differently.
Each program enters a different universe. The French baroque will shine with ‘All matins du monde’, on Sunday. Thirty-one years after the success of this film by Alain Corneau dedicated to the great French violists of the 17th century, Monsieur de Sainte Colombe and his disciple marin-marais With a soundtrack by Jordi Savall, the viola player will recover songs by both musicians but also pieces by Lully and Couperin. Originally planned in an old monastery bedroom, the concert has been moved outside the venue to avoid the heat.
On Monday 15, coinciding with the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, the Capella Reial de Catalunya and Hespèrion XXI will bid farewell and culminate the Savall apotheosis in Santes Creus interpreting the ‘Songs of Santa Maria’, composed at the court of Alfonso X el Sabio (1221-1284).
Catalonia versus Europe
In cities like Paris, Frankfurt or Salzburg, where Savall performed on July 29, tickets for his concerts sell out in less than two weeks. In Catalonia, the sales rhythm is different. “With the covid and the crisis, habits have changed, people no longer plan so much and wait until the last minute. But I’m not worried about anything because this festival, although it doesn’t have much tradition, has a lot of quality.”
Most of the public that attends the concerts for more than one day spends the night in the area, explains Martí Santcliment, festival coordinator. “85% of the public is Catalan but there are also people from the rest of Spain, Belgium and Portugal, and from Japan”, he points out. “The rural houses in the area are full and Valls, the most important urban center that is nearby, receives many visitors.” That’s not counting all the musicians and technical teams at the festival. “Only these last ones already occupy three hotels”, he comments.
Other initiatives
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There are quite a few festivals that unite music and architectural heritage. In Catalonia the majority is concentrated in summer, like the Torroella de Montgrí Festivalwhich began to be held with concerts in the church of Sant Genís and is already underway, and the Vilabertana proposal centered on the lied that emerged in the canonical of Vilabertran that has later spread to churches in other towns in the Empordà. Its 30th edition opens precisely this Thursday with a recital by the German soprano Marlis Peterson.
Music in the Pyrenees offers concerts in churches in 38 high-mountain municipalities. In the Delta del Ebre for seven years the DeltaChamber, a festival dedicated to chamber music that concluded a week ago. In Barcelona the Auditori organizes the festival before summer Lums d’Antiga in singular spaces and churches such as Sant Pau del Camp.