Christoph Willibald Gluck - Don Juan; Semiramis (Jordi Savall)

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Composer: Christoph Willibald Gluck

• Don Juan ou le Festin de pierre, Wq. 52
• Semiramis, Wq. Anh. C/1

Le Concert des Nations

Jordi Savall, conductor

Date: 2022

Label: Alia Vox

https://www.alia-vox.com/en/producte/gluck-don-juan-semiramis/

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Review

Whether the recent complete set of Beethoven’s symphonies or the lavishly produced conversations between different musical cultures, Jordi Savall relishes a large-scale project. His latest offering might be more modest as he accepts ‘an invitation to the dance’ from Gluck, but it’s typically thoroughgoing. Better remembered today for his ‘reform’ operas, Gluck was an important figure in the development of ballet as it sought to transcend the decorative in pursuit of heightened characterisation and dramatic depth. Staged in Vienna in 1761 Don Juan was a landmark whose ambitions were amplified by Sémiramis – a dark cocktail of double murder with an incestuous twist improbably conceived for the wedding celebrations of Emperor Joseph II in 1765.

The story of Don Juan, familiar from Mozart’s Don Giovanni – or the Molière on which the ballet is based – was originally unfolded across 16 movements; but (like Tafelmusik on Sony) Savall opts for the later expanded version, and sets it on its way with a Sinfonia full of aristocratic swagger. He understands the subtleties of Gluckian grace and studied simplicity, while Le Concert des Nations respond to the fast numbers with gutsy, incisive aplomb – the famous Dance of the Furies from the Paris incarnation of Orfeo ed Euridice first appeared in Don Juan incidentally. For all that the music is delivered with stylish affection – the thrumming guitar and clicking castanets of the Fandango a case in point – the procession of mostly short numbers dilutes an experience that might better have been served by a fully-staged choreography on DVD.

-- Paul Riley, BBC Music Magazine

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Christoph Willibald Gluck (2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a German composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. He gained prominence at the Habsburg court at Vienna, where he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices and broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck was extremely popular and widely credited with bringing about a revolution in French opera. He wrote eight operas for the Parisian stages, fusing the traditions of Italian opera and the French national genre into a new synthesis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christoph_Willibald_Gluck

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Jordi Savall (born August 1, 1941) is a Catalan conductor, viol player and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for reviving the use of viol family instruments in contemporary performance and recording. As a historian of early music his repertoire features everything from medieval, Renaissance and Baroque through to the Classical and Romantic periods. Savall is founder of the ensemble Hespèrion XX/XXI and the orchestra Le Concert des Nations. His discography includes more than 200 recordings on EMI Classics, Astrée and Alia Vox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordi_Savall

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