La Folia - Jordi Savall

Now let us see an older disc that was several times recommended by many sources – including this blog. However, no full article was published about it so far.

This disc simply opens a new era.

It starts something that is copied further by many performers. It has thrown something into the water and the waves are still in progress.

La Folia.

If you are good in English, you might immediately associate to ‘folie’ or ‘folly’. 

There were many odd happenings in the 15^th century which were never published in the chronicles, mostly due to the censorship of the Church. There were some melodies that caused a strange and mysterious anxiety in the people and they were unable to stop dancing after hearing it. Complete villages went crazy: they started to go around dancing not even knowing where they are heading. They grouped into dirty and wild hoards and started wondering around lead by a mysterious force. It took a few weeks before they ended up as victims of burglars or illnesses. Based on the quite inappropriate codices of the time, science describes this phenomenon as ‘dance epidemic’ or ‘dance tantrum’ but there are only vogue guesses about what could cause it. The explanation can be either mass psychosis or a ‘proper’ epidemic spread by a specific germ similar to the plague – nobody knows. 

There is not enough information from that era, in which half of the population could easily be erased by a deadly disease.

The Church chose the only possible solution: they forbade playing those melodies by listing them among the infamous Forbidden Dances of the time. Later the prohibition became less strict, the problematic era came to an end and the issue gradually went into oblivion.

Most of these melodies are lost. Only two of them survived, hidden in folk music: one of them is the Italian Tarantella and the other one is the Iberian La Folia.

The Folia is considered to be of Portuguese origin but nobody is really sure about it. It was first noted down at the end of the 15^th century. Then this melody has marched through music history in the form of several transcripts and adaptations. 

It was part of the curriculum of musical studies during the baroque era and the number of possible variations is even multiplied due to the fact that this melody is also an ostinato, a bass base.

At first it is very charming. 

Why? 

Because it is very melodic, very harmonic, even to the point that it is a bit too harmonic, too perfect. This is certainly an anchor at the area that we call the musical collective unconscious. Humans have always been driven towards melody throughout the centuries. However, there were composers, who disdained it orcompletely left it out from their works. Or those, who were simply incapable of creating it (J. S. Bach) [the translator of this article disagrees].

Nowadays the intensive presence of low quality music devalues this important part of the musical thinking, but the drive for melody is still present as a basic human quality.

For the second though, Folia is not as innocent as we would first think. This melody is highly invasive, i.e. it discretely but very aggressively settles in the mind and sinks down into the unconscious. We gradually lose control over it and its further actions are unpredictable.

At the later Folias in the good performances an interesting divergence can be noticed: the slow parts are getting slower and eventually the music stops, even a few seconds of pause can be inserted into this originally fast music, while the fast parts on the contrary get faster and faster, so much that they can escalate into complete madness.

Savall himself said that this dance was unstoppable as well as playing this music. Even a bucket of cold water could not help ending such outbreaks in the not so distant Portugal.

Indeed, when listening to this music from the disc the endings are always a bit forcedas the musicians have to exit this madhouse somehow. 

The other question is why these seemingly innocent chords cause such a chaos in the human psyche, but this could be the subject of a different, scientific essay.

Savall has been obsessed with Folia from the beginning; he made this melody popular in contemporary Early Music and published four famous discs on this theme.

The first one is solely focusing on Folia. It starts at the beginning and proceeds to late Baroque. The Zanetti viol  is one of the instruments he is playing on this recording. The other one is an original, six-string instrument from 1550; this one has a special, slightly pale, flat, wooden tone, this is one of the most beautiful voice of viola da gamba that we can find on recording. Savall is creating several unbelievable series of sounds, but sometimes even a simple chord can touch us very deeply. He is virtuoso, extremely precise, using decorations; he is emotional but never pathetic. And beyond those there is a delicate, undefinable element for which we have to say that this music is genius.

We insert the disc. 

The first track.

The first sound.

The sound of a tambourine. And it is strange right from the beginning, as the rhythm is very precise but it is not where we expect it. He is keeping it between the base rhythm of 4/6 and 5/6. You can try to follow it… but you might not make it for the first try.

This is an early Folia, its sung version is known as Rodrigo Martinez. The music and the series of variations provoked very serious explanations but the lyrics are very simple, we can even say dull. More or less the song is about Rodrigo, who is a cool guy, about the way he is steering the geese and later he thinks they are cows instead, hey…

The organ-player monk Martin y Coll got infected too, around 1700.

And at the end Corelli and Vivaldi, who also went crazy from this melody.

In the first four tracks next to Savall the continuo is played by Behringer (keyboard), Lislevand (lute), Pedro Estevan (percussion). Such a magical harmony is very rare. The late folias are mostly performed by Manfredo Kraemer and what he does on the violin is being copied by many even now.

The sound quality is extremly good. The original version from 1999 by Alia Vox is among the first editions; it was republished at least three times already, now available on SACD. 

On HighEnd sets this has a very hypnotic effect.

The mantra-like repetition of a Renaissance ostinato can evoke very interesting impressions. Funnily enough, it can easily be connected to the contemporary technique of  loop used in pop-music. While the latter can sometimes prove to bea piece of rubbish, sometimes it can be something very delicate. We shouldn’t underestimate this effect; the story is never so simple.

This disc is a very good example of something that many people still don’t understand. They ask: So is this music about a few chords that are being repeated for several minutes? Is that all? There is no counterpoint; the fugue technique, which could be on an artistic level here, is not even represented. So it is like a renaissance dance, one step to the right, another one to the left, not very special but the dresses are nice, at least.

This approach was so destructive that we had to wait until these days to finally hear those renaissance pieces and folias played by such musicians who think in a different way then above. Finally they create something similar to this recording. And therefore we can start to think differently about these pieces as well. 

But how can we?

We might think that indeed, these pieces are extremely melodic.

Or that they are intellectually exciting.

That they are disturbing.

That Heisenberg was right, the weight is and has always been in the progress of definition. 

As there are not even two chords on this disc that sound the same.

Because it moves us from the inside.

Because we completely and deeply understand Odysseus, who is already at home, well rested, with a freshly cut beard walking on the market, rummaging around tomato and date, looking at beautiful women and is always thinking about the music he heard far away on the sea, while he was tied to the mast…

We start to understand that unity is in the center of things; therefore it is on the surface. This surface is the form. What is on the surface of things is what is the most profound in them.

While listening to the several delicately different variations we start to understand that the nature of the world can be described by differences, not by opposites. All similar entities differ and all differences are similar to one another, but in a way that similarities never fully overlap each other and the differences never become absolute opposites.

We have the chance to learn to hear differences in music, we, who are mainly thinking in counterpoints and bipolar opposites.

.

.

.

But what about you? 

If you are a fan of the great IX^th ? 

No problem.

It is a great entrance for Early Music.

Absolutely recommended.

Otherwise, just take a guitar, any kind of guitar, it is worth the effort. Am – E – Am – G – C – G – Am – E and so on. Just make sure you will be able to stop at a certain point…

Translated by Szirmay Katalin

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Quotes:

Hamvas Béla - Hungarian writer, philosopher 

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Thank you for the images.

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Opera Ball in the House - Heed Nexus power amplifier

Heed Audio is somewhat known in Hungary; better known in foreign countries; it belongs to the few hi-fi manufactures where records are preferred to cables for example. Heed constructs systems, the components are designed to fit one another, ventures out of cast are not frequent, trade of organs are not fond of, High End Shows at home are not visited, however, there are clubs, community, live music, and they had even viola da gamba once…I hardly believe it myself, it was so fascinating.

The spectrum is diverse - from CD players through phono PSU to loudspeakers everything can be found; the Heed Enigma omnidirectional speaker has become speciality in the audiophile world. They have always had various series of devices, the aristocracy sits enthroned on top, obviously, just like in the old days. Some might remember the name Nexus - the origin of the bloodline vanishes in the early days of Hungarian history of hi-fi. The old Nexus of which three things were whispered - it has a fine sound, it is pretty scarce and very costly. Due to the latter two we have little experience in the sound, at least old memories are whirling with old equipment. At present a prototype novel Nexus mono-block pair has been designed. It is still being developed, do not look for it in the shop, it may be different eventually, it is not even certain to join the series of Heed. They why this test? 

Simply, the article is not about the technical details or topology but rather the music philosophy and approach of Heed, the relation - Nexus.

There are occasions at times when the nobility gathers together, have a chit-chat, treat themselves with delicious food, survey each other’s jewels and pompous outfit; a typical example is the ball where all this happens in highbrow circles, during the dubious estate transactions and stock market discussions there is loads of music around which, hopefully, our whole hi-fi existence winds.


Such an illustrious gathering was organised in my home the other day.

Arrival in curtained chariots in perfect professional wrapping, the dress code is black evening dress, really, the exterior is elegant, half rack size, not too thick, one single clip at the back, only captions in the front and a blue led light


A clear type - murmurs someone with a gold chain covered in cigar smoke, his face is not visible, he is a fat racist if you do not need to talk about the origin of races with him, he is a cool guy, he has rhodium mines and he finances processions against mp3 in secret 

The standard connectors are of extremly high quality.

Meeting with strange and genteel families for the first time, the cables, they arrived from the USA. Acoustic Zen Absolute speaker cable and Absolute XLR interconnect - rather than high quality cables peculiar to Heed - the hardcore American cable magician’s own signed pieces, the price is discreetly hushed up.

Nexus offers itself slightly ashamed, (to be plugged in from the back) the spades finely slip into their place, they can be heavily pressed together, it holds the 1.5 kg cable monster tight, this eve the banana plug would receive a half-smile only.

There are a few topics you must be able to talk about in continuum in circles like this before you go on to talk about illegal gun transport.
It is golf, tennis, sports cars and balanced signal path.

Heed and XLR???
Yes, blue blood Nexus can make it too, what is more, in real balanced operation mode rather than  usual transformer produced semi-XLR.

The other member of the company is Mark Levinson, No. 512. SACD player, is just saying that “No” is not abbreviation of 'Number' but the word to be answered to the question whether a better CD player is available, a faint smile to the lousy joke, but, indeed, a Rolls Royce among the CD players, big, black, with Esoteric industrial masterpiece mechanics inside, in its 12-cylinder engine with 4 pairs of DAC chips in dual-difference operation and a genuine digitally controlled analogue volume control.

The speaker is a mixture, it worked its way up to the club with its sound referring to big names; factory AN drivers, AN E cabinet which is a Snell really (Peter Snell invented it in the USA), he is remembered only by the oldest Mafioso in the room. - inside a Snell J crossover works.
A genuine big face, it boasts with its 27 Hz bass-frequency limit, keeps telling lies that it subjugated the room too, it uses it like a rag to produce sub bass. The outfit is amazing, veneer genuine, but the paper of the driver is like the one in my granny’s vacuum tube radio, plain and black, tweeters and modified Vifas costing $ 20 -  in the Xover 10-cent elcos well, but the topic is rather the 50k+ price of the full silver AN brother.

Nexus is located in a nice big place of a cubic metre because the missing power amplifier, DP 6C33C, with power tubes of a MIG25 fighter, 2×25 kg, 600W PSU power supply and 280 degree Celsius surface pipe temperature is like a carrier rocket ship.
I am keen on it.
Tube is another galaxy. It is a music generator. It is in dry dock in Budapest at the moment for Peter Dénes is fixing the security control of a nuclear reactor; it is fine as it is for there is no need for comparison and the craze of hasty re-plugging, it is all about the ball and the music we are listening to.

As little as an hour of chit-chat, familiarising, warm-up - I leave the room to allow them to vibrate together and have small talk.



You are not of a big size, max a 100W toroid inside, if it fits the place then what is enough for? 
a transistor tycoon art collector is being malicious.

Frida Kahlo was exactly 150.5cm, she replies, the other takes a deep gulp for everybody knows that yesterday he paid 3 million pounds for a Frida’s painting.


Two flat shoe boxes - a boot would not fit in, a media tycoon is buggering with a hardware empire behind him, he arrived in a copper Limousine, for he is wending in Al-Ni-Co magnet business.

In Reviczky Castle in Budapest [Heed Audio is located in Reviczky street at Budapest] I walked on marble or inlaid wood floor, I saw boots only when Dad went hunting or fashion shows in Paris…

What she said makes them laugh.

I wish you were not that cold...  (for in high operation Nexus will not even be lukewarm) a class A member - who made his first millions manufacturing waffle makers - is trying to console.

We have central steam heating in the palace, no need for more heat and I imbue music from inside.

They clink glasses, she is accepted.

Opening dance.

Nexus is swivelling nicely; its spikes do not get tangled, when it is the harpsichord’s turn there is no stumble. Rapid, detailing with fine lower octave; its general balance is good as it is for first hearing. No abrupt force for wiring.
My, how important it is, if only you knew…

Then some starters. Harp pieces, phantasies, a Folia run from SACD.
Musical - it is the first timid compliment she receives. The complicated synonyms of this word accompany the whole evening party.

There is a Bach piece whose prelude is very nice on viola da gamba. A few heedonists may remember Zsolt’s face [owner of Heed Audio] when we suggested playing this minute from a record then Nora will play the real one … it was a great fun.

Appreciative rumble filled the room. You can hear that an ultra-slight inaccuracy turns up in a continual track of sound at several places, a bit of shiver three times as if it was an intended ornamentation. I listened to it 7 times at one sitting - it happens when I am in the mood.

The main courses come. Vivaldi operas, then the new L’Arpeggiata record, Cavalli’s masterpiece. Concertos, complicated sopranos, gastronomical specialities, beautiful melodies. Nexus takes up the right register fast, these have been my favourite music, I am especially fond of accompanied monody; she is speaking with a finely descending tone as if she was saying that the weather is fine.

Doubt is gone from the faces, the pot-bellied director of the Opera starts ogling with her, indeed, she delivers the complexity of music well, the counter tenors are grandiose, it is known by few only. Fine pulsation in the continuo, the breathing of the choir members is nicely heard. After Tecum Principium she is embraced by some, the women are whining for so beautifully she is singing.

Candles are lit, sacred music is forthcoming. Masterpieces of Renaissance polyphony, then Monteverdi’s vespers, then Cabezón, harp music again. It is going to be a big temple, huge space, mild smell of myrrh and excellent intonation.

Meanwhile the director of the Opera is hooked on in the bathroom; he is washing his hands, he is ardently explaining to the Russian attaché - plutonium and the military tubes are the main profile there - Look, I utter the word: plunk, p at the beginning, p, p, p, it is perfect at Nexus in a way that there is no saliva on the mirror…at least 4 main roles are flashing in his head which he wants to have sung by Nexus in La Fenice; then he rushes back to the saloon where the cembalo rehearsal is just over, yes, the member card with a gold edge is placed in Nexus’s hand where the members are able to sound this semitone-sensitive instrument amusingly; not many are distributed unfortunately; perfect amplifiers costing many million have already bled to death on this battlefield.

Then thumping on the door, some men wearing other than a tail coat are pushing a portative organ in, run back to fetch the Baroque guitars and drums and rattles and some weird wind instruments, the candles are put out, torches with big flames are hung on the wall then they start the performance.

Frighteningly good atmosphere springs up, Nexus feels magnificently, everybody is dancing, men are wearing shirts only, the butler is massaging his forehead, it is unprecedented, he moans. Theatrical intermezzo music from the Sun King’s era, then the chansons of Le Poeme Harmonique, Venetian dances and coloratura arias, then off to Mexico, everything is shaking and rattling, the bass is simply genius, I have never heard such a rattle from a solid state, they danced until daybreak…

They sleep till next noon, then packing. Nexus off, disconnected, the blue eyes are still lighting, the puffers, elcos are big, I take them out to the chariot, I can see her watching ML standby, it is blinking red led faster and faster, seriously, it cannot come off the trestle with its 20 kilos, the blue light is not willing to turn off, the looks interweave, well, they have fallen into love all right, how romantic, I am laughing, I cannot stand it in music but it is nice here; I close the box, draw the curtain in the chariot down, ML is still blinking faster…

I wiped the dust off its top every day for a week and fed it with lukewarm SACD only when it finally calmed down.

In the evening at bedtime the two E boxes whisper something, Nexus’s musicality seems to have left an imprint; 

They are not contemplating why Peter Qvortrup and Peter Snell, have the same name and what internal cables they would be happy about or what placemats are needed and where - but they are stroking their tight membrane edges, what a beat it was on the Pandolfo record and how much the gamba vibrated them all through, no, it does not hurt, moreover, it was pretty fine,

..and then they had an argument whether Sandrine Piau or Jaroussky are better voices and how Leznieva can have such great singing, how small her mouth is and why there was no hi-fi record in the arena, yet, the Spanish guitar was fine in the end, then they started pulling the early tuning systems out of their ass, then made comparisons of double manual cembalos, there came the Renaissance theory of the Equity of Strings, … then I think I fell asleep.





I am returning the stuff, I think I will have a rest at the next halt and if there is an Allen key in the car, I should only have a look in it, try to find, perhaps there is a tube there, for it is impossible that a solid state toots so well.
I must tell Zsolt something if he asks what it was like, I will make up something in the traffic jam in Budapest, I am trying to gather my thoughts; it is not that simple to avoid offending him or making him over-confident, the situation will give itself.
It should be something like this:

Hi, Zsolt, Nexus is a good amplifier indeed, I liked it, thanks again.

Yes, I think it will be just fine.

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Translated by Kenesei Andrea

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This Nexus monoblock pair never returned to Heed Audio - they are still in my room.
After 3 years - no any amplifier could outperform it,
I love it.
____________________

300W toroid each.
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Paired with BBC monitors - outstanding.
Complicated crossover is no problem.
Harbeth and Spendor speakers especially love it.

_____________________

You will find the Heed's website. 
Nexus was produced in a very limited seria only.

____________________
Thank you for the images.
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Alhambra

A friend of mine is in far-away Granada. We had an idea - he travels there and I take a journey here and then we talk about our experiences…

Alhambra.

It is a fort in the north of Granada. There are a lot of data about it, Wikipedia and other encyclopaedias deal with it in detail. Looking into the topic more thoroughly it turns out that the provided information is only superficial phrases raised into canon by the academies and scientific societies.

As blur and disorder are simply astonishing. We come to a standstill even at the name because the favoured formula, the Arabic 'al-hamra', red fort is to our liking; problem is that nothing is and has ever been red here. Neither the sand nor the setting Sun. 

The north-east siting is unusual, to say the least. 

Who was it built by? Well, a dozen names are still debated, also, what grounds it is built on if there was anything before it. No written history remained about the construction despite the fact that it lasted for decades. Then each significant ruler built in something, which makes the whole thing chaotic. Is it a fort at all? It has little strategic significance in the old times. Military-wise, it was completely unsuitable for a fort because it was full of private residences, baths and luxurious apartments by the wall.

It was full of so many ornaments that you are so much struck by the beauty that you think it makes you dizzy and feel to be drugged by the walls, pillars, floors and canopies, the decoration breathtakingly finely carved that the tiles and walls and the inexhaustible infinities of hoof arcs and stalactite domes glitter at you…

The labyrinth protected by 27 towers is too much of a fort to be a palace, where you are definitely lost due to the near right angles.

Alhambra does not show any construction method; architecturally it is rather a collection of question marks so there is no right way inside, not even a way to follow because the patios and rooms are not connected as expected. As if they were to themselves as Alhambra is to itself, it does not tolerate any fitting into a system.

Alhambra offers knowledge, the knowledge of total incomprehensibility. 

The enlaces and whirls of asymmetric decorations are included in several books, the impossibly precise backfill of girih made generations of mathematicians sweat, today’s space technology super computers take seconds trying to solve this problem.

Then come the many historical facts. 

For example, when Granada fell in 1492, the Moriscos were ousted for good, the Christian Kings arrived and Reconquista was completed.

Alhambra has stood on the hill solitary since then for it was not destroyed, it is the culmination of Arabic culture and ornaments, however, without Arabs so its secrets will never be revealed.

 

…it will survive illuminated, solitary, infinite, in perfect standstill with its valuable volumes, useless, incorruptible, secretly.

Done so and you are still interested, you should turn to something that does not explain away, does not tell the truth, does not say what is uniquely infallible, yet, gives an answer from inside.

Yes, music. Like so many times.

Iberian early music is special owing to the Arabic influence. It works in the same way as in astrology, or in genetics for the realists. In the amalgamation of two strong things like Arabic and Spanish (Renaissance) music there is no equalisation, no lukewarm water. No bluish-brown eyes. The dominant feature will not get a conformist effect so a not-so-dominant feature - does not exist.

Nope. 

Complex recombination, latent oddities turning up after many generations, children with bright blue eyes appearing inexplicably, postmen and pizza delivery boys blushing innocently, a mass of complicated oscillations. The increase of complexity can be felt and heard.

Begona Olavide.

The name means psaltery. 

She is a genuine expert, she plays and teaches numerous versions of it.

An instrument whose last heyday was in the 1300s. Is it an archaistic, antique-like, obsolete weird instrument defined in the encyclopaedia in 10 lines and that is all? The story is not that simple. A French psaltery fan, Marin Mersenne wrote exactly one thousand words in Harmonia Universell in 1635, the story is there, the instrument inside and outside, strings, tuning, playing, in a word, everything that counts. Its followers, not even few, keep it alive creating a nice tradition in music again.

The Hungarian reference? A delightful oasis in the Early Music makes us happy with fantastic performances sometimes. Emese Tóth expert is a singer too and plays the instrument so beautifully that you are happy once you can hear it…

Begona plays music in Paniagua circle in this record, they are one of the centres in Early Music in Spain of which there are many. What a place it can be…hard to imagine from here. 

Mudejar.

The Muslims who did not convert to Catholicism after the defeat. On the contrary, they stayed there and went on keeping Allah’s sacred faith.

What an upright thing it was.

The repertoire is nicely familiar, the Iberian hits of the Renaissance; the lightsome feeling lasts until the record starts. It is something different. Somewhat more. We can recognise the Portuguese Folia even from its first two accords, give me a guitar, I can pluck the melody by hearing it. Is it pleasant? 

Well, things went far at this point.

The column cap ornaments of Alhambra stay on the sounds; the infinite and aperiodic maze of Arabesque; we remember, don’t we that Pythagoras had his student beheaded who put the question about these weird kind of numbers? They are still called irrational numbers because they exist and do not exist, literally, no beginning or end, fictive existence, yet, it can be depicted any time. My friend is wandering in the palace at the moment is a mathematician; I simply cannot understand how he can comprehend this canonised madness in the door reliefs of Alhambra, in the variants of Las Vacas and in the functions of modern fractal analysis. And two radical in the diagonal of the square when it turns into a triangle, which is, by the way, completely impossible…

Luckily, the instruments do not know about it, they count the incalculable according to some other upper relation and show something that cannot be presented.

Pasebase el Rey Moro – the song is about the fall of Granada from the point of view of the Arabs.

“Christian champions” say the lyrics. 

What a nice respect of the deadly enemy… 

Begona’s voice fully fits in the metaphysics of Alhambra. It can be fitted into a frame. Exactly as a girih works. There is no any broken tile needed to fill the complicated bird-shaped area.

What is it like? Sweet, fascinating and moving but firm as the slash of a sword, commanding, tells a story, begs, prays and invokes with deep dark colours. Those ornamentations in her voice …they simply do not leave me in peace.

Almost frightening.

As she sings the bones of the old heroes crackle in an abandoned catacomb in Granada and their eternal souls are given an illuminating glow…

And then we get a bottle of fine wine and my friend tells me about Alhambra.

I look forward to it.

Here is the record until then.

Listen.

*         *         *

Translated by Kenesei Andrea

_________________________

Quotes:

Krasznahorkai László: Távoli felhatalmazás

Jorge Luis Borges: The Library of Babel

______________________

Thank you for the images.

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