Description
Bal-Kan: Honey & Blood - Cycles of Life / Miet et Sang - Les Cycles de la Vie / 3x Audio CD Box / Voix de la Mémoire - Voices of Memory / Hespérion XXI - Jordi Savall
Hardcover 2013
ISBN: 9788494138546 / 978-8494138546
ISBN-10: 8494138545
PAGES: 134
English Desctription
The name of the Balkans has an unusually graphic etymology: having discovered the beauty of this pivotal part of Europe, which stretches from Italy to the Bosphorous, and the ruggedness of its people, who put up fierce resistance to their invasion, the Turks chose to describe the region with the words Bal (Honey) and Kan (Blood). Honey & Blood: never was there so apt a metaphor! So much richness and drama packed into such a small area is guaranteed to fire the imagination of historians and artists, especially musicians.
Thanks to the magic of an ambitious programme built around the cycles of life, Jordi Savall invites us to travel the length and breadth of a region which has always had more than its share of human and historical drama. 230 minutes of music scan the full range of human emotions illuminated by a thousand-and-one different musical traditions, all of which nevertheless spring from a common source.
The future belongs to those with the longest memory, wrote Nietzsche. Once more, Jordi Savall brilliantly demonstrates that music is a key component of the collective memory that enables us to face our future. This lavishly documented CD-Book, translated into twelve languages, is a must in any self-respecting library-record collection.
Referència: AVSA9902
- Jordi Savall
- Hespèrion XXI
To Voltaire’s statement “Without the senses there is no memory, and without memory there is no mind”, we would add that without memory and mind there is neither Justice nor Civilisation. Music is the most spiritual of all the Arts. In fact, it is the Art of Memory par excellence, which only exists when a singer or an instrumentalist brings it to life. It is then, when our senses are moved by the beauty and emotion of a song or by the surprising vitality of a dance, that, thanks to memory, we can capture it in our minds. Such intense yet fleeting moments
I. CREATION:
UNIVERSE, ENCOUNTERS & DESIRES
II. SPRING:
BIRTH, DREAMS & CELEBRATIONS
CD 2
III. SUMMER:
ENCOUNTERS, LOVE & MARRIAGE
IV. AUTUMN:
MEMORY, MATURITY & JOURNEY
CD 3
V. WINTER:
SPIRITUALITY, SACRIFICE, EXILE & DEATH
VI. (RE)CONCILIATION
The selection of music for this recording has been carried out on the basis of our research into the Sephardic and Ottoman repertories conserved in the principal cities of the Balkans and, above all, thanks to the proposals made by the various specialist musicians and ensembles: Agi Szalóki, Meral Azizoğlu, Bora Dugić, Tcha Limberger, Nedyalko Nedyalkov, Dimitri Psonis, Gyula Csík, Irini Derebei and Moslem Rahal, whom we invited to work with us on the project. We thank them all for their remarkable commitment and their wonderful musical performances. Their variety and diversity have contributed to the shape and meaning of this “Bal·Kan: Honey & Blood” Ancient and modern musical traditions, rural and urban music, celebratory or evocative pieces, including songs and dances of very different origin, from Bulgaria to Serbia, from Macedonia to the furthest reaches of Ottoman Turkey, from Romania to the Hungarian border, from Bosnia to Greece, from Sephardic music to Gypsy traditions.
A veritable musical mosaic performed by the “Voices of Memory” and accompanied on original instruments from each culture: Kaval, Gûdulka (Bulgarian Lira), Tambura, Greek Lira, Kamancheh, Kanun, Oud, Tambur, Ney, Santur, Saz, Violin and Double Bass, Frula, Cymbalum, Accordeon, Organ and Guitar, etc. All this music, together with the earlier recording of instrumental music, “Spirit of the Balkans”, enables us to evoke a multicultural map of the musical traditions of this rich part of Eastern Europe, which astonish and entrance us not only with their vitality and passion, but also with their beauty and spirituality. We can see that, despite the national characteristics of the various peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, it is very often those very same traits that unite them at the deepest level.
