Jordi Savall - Hume: Musicall Humors, London 1605 (2004)

Jordi Savall's long-awaited follow-up to his 1982 recording of 13 pieces from Tobias Hume: Musicall Humors is this 2004 recording of 20-piece from Tobias Hume: Musicall Humors. The former disc was one of the most beautiful, most stirring, most elegant, most touching, and most frightening of all Savall's gamba discs, and the latter disc is not only as good as the former disc, it contains and even exceeds the former disc. That is because all but two of the pieces on the former disc appear again on the latter disc newly recorded and the latter disc adds nine newly recorded pieces. Of course, Death is still here, as is Life, Love's Farewell, My hope is decayed, Touche me lightly, A Souldiers Galliard, A Souldiers Resolution, and the inevitable Good againe, but added are A humorous Pavin, A Question, An Answer, The New Cut, and The Spirit of Gambo, a droll hymn to his own chosen instrument. In 1982 Savall was the prince of gambists and in the passage of 22 years, he has become its king. His tone is full, warm, and subtle. His technique is beyond reproach. His interpretations are as one with the music, but while expressing Hume's musical humors, it also expresses Savall's own musical personality. The result is that the latter disc is as enormously attractive as the former disc, but with the advantage of being 20 minutes longer. Alla vox's digital sound puts Savall in the same room with you.