This 2014 release is a sequel, 20 years on, to one of Jordi Savall's most successful earlier albums, 1994's La Lira d'Espéria. The "lyre" of the title is the set of descendants of Greek stringed instruments in use during the Spanish golden age: the vielle, its Islamic counterpart the rebab, and the rarer rebel morisco, all three of which are played by Savall on this recording. (Hesperia was the Greek name for the Iberian peninsula, and for Italy as well.) The difference between this second volume and the first one is that ...
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This 2014 release is a sequel, 20 years on, to one of Jordi Savall's most successful earlier albums, 1994's La Lira d'Espéria. The "lyre" of the title is the set of descendants of Greek stringed instruments in use during the Spanish golden age: the vielle, its Islamic counterpart the rebab, and the rarer rebel morisco, all three of which are played by Savall on this recording. (Hesperia was the Greek name for the Iberian peninsula, and for Italy as well.) The difference between this second volume and the first one is that the present release focuses on the music of the Galicia region, ruled in the 13th century by Alfonso X, known as El Sabio, the Wise. Alfonso, who appreciated both the Islamic and the Jewish scholarly traditions, was a poet and composer (or perhaps compiler) who left more than 400 songs known as the Cantigas de Santa María. There is considerable iconographic evidence that these were sometimes performed as instrumental melodies, and that's what Savall does here, weaving the cantigas...
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