Hespèrion XX & XXI, Jordi Savall - Ministriles Reales (2009)

AliaVox's Ministriles Reales is a sprawling, two-disc survey of secular music heard in the Spanish royal courts between the middle of the fifteenth century up to the end of the seventeenth. Led by Jordi Savall and performed by musicians drawn from both Hespèrion XX and XXI, it includes a number of pieces Savall has recorded before for AliaVox, but there doesn't seem to be any recycling of recorded performances already released. There are a great many anonymous pieces included, and while these rub shoulders with "name" composers, it is clearly the literature and instrumentation and that drives this project and not the personalities of any individual figures represented in the collection. The sound quality is superb, and the Super Audio CD format underscores just how good these recordings are; they are startlingly lifelike and detailed.
From the outset, one might ask how this set could be anything but terrific. This is Savall's favorite repertoire and he maintains a close and harmonious relationship with the musicians in these ensembles. Savall certainly knows his instruments; in a sense, all of these pieces are "arranged" in that many survive only in keyboard versions, intabulations, or sources as scant as a single monophonic line; Savall has put considerable thought into just what combination of instruments will sound good with each piece, whether or not the use of percussion is appropriate and how to achieve the pseudo-orchestral texture he aims for in certain pieces. That said, as an album Ministriles Reales is not as appealing as it might be as Savall tends toward slow tempi in most of the things represented; there are long, successive strings of slow tracks that can weave the listener into an unrelieved state of somnolence and one really starts to want Savall to pick up the pace somewhere. One begins to question whether some of these "dances" could have been taken at a more dance-like tempo; it's just that the more languid, ethereal approach sounds prettier on the period instruments being played and given Savall's consummate expertise in the realm of instruments one cannot blame him for wanting to shoot for what sounds best. Ultimately, though, Ministriles Reales ends up being a lot of work for the listener.
If one is already well-disposed to Savall and his usual modus operandi, Ministriles Reales might well fit the bill without seeming particularly outstanding from the rest of his AliaVox output, and there are certainly individual pieces within this collection that come off well and provide enjoyment. While one cannot altogether condemn Ministriles Reales, its relative lack of variety over long stretches of the time it occupies conversely makes it difficult to praise.