. In Madrid, Spaniards are daily reminded of a golden century’s glories in the city’s central Plaza Mayor.
Sunday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Catalan viol virtuoso and conductor Jordi Savall brought instrumentalists and singers to dig deeper into an Iberian Baroque thus all but unknown. Composers’ names would be recognizable only to the avid scholar. Savall wound up in Mexico City, demonstrating that the Spanish Golden Age DNA strands may be more plentiful in the New World than normally realized.
Unsurprisingly, Savall’s look at his native Spain was full of the subtle intersection of cultures in a Spain that was more than a kingdom of cultural grandeur. His splendor, heard in 22 short works, alternating vocal with purely instrumental, was a look at the people.The forces were modest. Savall brought but six members — viol, harp, guitar, percussion — of his ensemble Hespèrion XXI, along with six voices from his La Capella Reial de Catalunya.
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