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Fanfare Magazine: 37:5 (05-06/2014) 
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Alia Vox
AVSA9900



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This issue follows an earlier disc so titled, recorded in 2006 but not reviewed here. Its content spanned the years from 1200 to 1700 and the lands from Morocco to Afghanistan, including Spain, of course. The music, including some snatches from the cantigas, was entirely instrumental and entirely anonymous except for that by Alfonso. The instruments were unusual and the players, with the exception of Savall and Pedro Estevan, were not Spanish.

The new program is subtitled Homage to the Syrian people, with surround sound this time. There are four vocalists now with the same two Westerner players (along with Pierre Hamon, named only in one list). Not compiled as some collections are, it was all recorded last year and packaged as a bound book, though no taller than a CD package this time. It runs to 430 pages because the notes are in seven languages and the texts appear with six translations. The color photographs and reproductions are lavish. The history of Syria is told from 9000 BC, from antiquity to the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine periods through Arab, Mamluk, and Ottoman eras, ending with the time from 1920 to the current civil war.

This is the sort of program that Savall has undertaken for some years now, a political-historical-irenic plea for brotherhood based on understanding and remembrance of what humanity shares. In less skilled hands, this might not work, but Savall is an extraordinary human being. He has an ear for music and an eye for beauty and a heart for peace, all vitalized by a brilliant mind that is capable of realizing a conception that is entirely original. The Syrian music is, of course, unfamiliar and anonymous. The civil war in Syria is the direct occasion for this recording. It bears the stamp of Savall’s concern for human suffering and his awareness that there is a way to peace. Extraordinary.  

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