Marin Marais
Pieces de viole du second Livre 1701 - Jordi Savall

THE REVIEW

The Baroque and Sublimation.

Sublimation of the material.

Spruce, flamed maple, ebony or rosewood: turning planks of wood into a viola da gamba.

Sublimation of craftsmanship.

Hands of the craftsman, tuner, and musician: making one's hands a vehicle of harmony.

Sublimation of writing.

Printed signs: transforming mute notational signs into a lively and fleeting vibration of the air.

Sublimation of the economy.

Mere money: turning one's money into a secondhand vinyl and a system capable of making its sound audible.

Sublimation of words.

Follies of Spain, Human Voices, Gigues, Minuets, and Gavottes: making unsuitable names (lacking any resemblance to the thing that resonates indefinitely in those who listen to it) that compositional forms have acquired by convention, a concrete and profound resonance, a red thread, a dialogue of the instrument with itself.

Sublimation of experience.

Listening, sometimes attentive, sometimes inattentive and discontinuous, interrupted by burnt onion sautés or other life tasks: making the repeated listening to the sound of an engraved groove, the engraving of an engraved groove—which is what we call memory—within ourselves. Of a groove that resonates in sync with the heavy resonance of the viola, according to the resonance of the recording of a viola made to vibrate at the touch (of one who knows how to touch it) to ensure that the dead signs and the silent piece of wood bent with steam (by one who knows how to bend it) become something entirely different.

An ordered and clear sound.

A piece of life.

How all this can happen remains a mystery to me.