Jordi Savall - Guerre et Paix (2015)

This CD+book evokes through music the great century which preceded the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714: a rich musical fresco and an in-depth historical review of a very brief but highly representative period in the history of Europe and its conflicts. From the Ottomans’ attack on Hungary in 1613, the Massacre of the Jews in Frankfurt in 1614, and the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, to the Peace Treaty of Utrecht and the fall of Barcelona, we can see the extent of this unremitting tragedy of European civilization: the widespread use of the “culture of war” as the principal means of settling cultural, religious, political, and territorial differences.

As a counterpoint to these moments in history, Jordi Savall and his players have chosen to perform the most representative musical works by contemporary composers, both known and anonymous, from the period: Samuel Scheidt, Ambrosio Cotes, Lope de Vega, Johann Hermann Schein, Guillaume Dumanoir, Philidor, Johann Rosenmüller, John Jenkins, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Dimitrie Cantemir, Francesco Cavalli, Joan Cererols, John Blow, Joan Cabanilles, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Antonio Caldara, Vasily Titov, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, and George Frederick Händel, among the former, and Jewish (Aramaic), Ottoman, Catalan, Spanish, and French composers, among the latter.