A Piacere

A Piacere

For centuries, the viola da gamba, in its countless variants, was a dominant presence on the European musical scene. But with the decline of the aristocratic world in the late 18th century, it too fell into decline. This not only condemned it to a long period of obscurity but also crystallised a particular aesthetic in the collective imagination: that of its last golden age, in the France of Louis XV. The viola da gamba came to be associated with intimacy, decadence and melancholy, an image that persists to this day as part of its very essence.

And yet – without overlooking, of course, the appeal of that aesthetic, that repertoire and its model of the instrument – the countless types, performing styles and repertoires that the viol embraced during its nearly three centuries of dominance tend to be pushed into the background. Between its beginnings, associated with Morisco music in Spain, and the virtuoso Berlin repertoire of the 18th century, by way of the Italian diminutions and the English popular repertoire of the 17th century, the viol lent itself to every imaginable shape, size, scoring and tuning: from the small quinton to the great violones; from the singing jeu de mélodie to the rich chords of the jeu d’harmonie; from the lyra viol and its endless settings to the resonant seven-string viol of Sainte-Colombe; from the solo repertoire to the role of continuo player, the English consort, mixed ensembles with German violins, duos for equal voices, concertos with orchestra…

Perhaps this is what drew me most to what would become my instrument: that no two were ever alike, that it was never standardised, that it never let itself be tamed, as happened with the others studied in conservatoires today. There was no sonority, social class or musical style to which the viol was a stranger, and rather than one instrument we should speak of a whole world of instruments. Historical iconography reveals as much: the dozens of paintings and engravings that portray it never repeat a model. Among them we find hardly any constant features beyond being a viola (a bowed instrument) and da gamba (played between the legs); everything else changed from city to city, from palace to street, from musician to musician.

The generations of viola da gamba players of the second half of the 20th century, with the father of the modern viola da gamba, Jordi Savall, as their vanguard and beacon, recovered many of those worlds and sonorities and prepared the instrument to take on its role as a full member of the contemporary instrumentarium. It is sometimes wrongly perceived – sadly, so often by viola da gamba players themselves – as technically limited compared with other instruments. On the contrary, it is far more flexible and potentially as complete and complex as any of them: it has no need to imitate them, but it can, and must, compete with them.

It falls to our generation of viola da gamba players to break down barriers – surely more mental than real: only persevering work can prove it – and to hand on to the next generation the technical tools and artistic courage that will banish, once and for all, any trace of an inferiority complex, often disguised as mysticism and esotericism, without thereby renouncing the uniqueness of an instrument full of resources of its own. The viol sings, and the viol accompanies its own song; the viol weeps, laments and suffers, but the viol also screams, tears and hurts; it is sun and moon, day and night… But to see, feel and draw this whole great palette of colours from the instrument, we must at last step out of Sainte-Colombe’s hut – I do not mean forget it – and look towards a new horizon where our destination is art tout court, music without labels, and where the musician’s first need emerges from within us: love for that marvellous muse that is the viol, and fusion with it to convey beauty and emotion.

In short, my wish with this CD is for the viol to contemplate, from its own particular perspective, repertoires distant in space and time, with no artistic or technical self-limitation, exploiting its resources to the full. From the music of 17th-century Spain to the most classical French viol repertoire, by way of Bach and Rameau and reaching out towards popular and present-day music, the model of viol best suited to each repertoire gives us the key to the thousand sonorities hidden in our instrument. A more open attitude may perhaps allow us to break down some barrier and take one more step forward with it, in the hope that the viol continues to grow and does not fall once again into another long and gloomy oblivion.

Fahmi Alqhai

01. Marizápalos – Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710)
02. Fandango – Santiago de Murcia (1673-1739)
03. Passacalle (Gaspar Sanz)
04. Canarios (Gaspar Sanz)

In this first set of pieces Fahmi Alqhai adapts dances from the Spanish baroque guitar repertoire for the viola da gamba.

05. El canto de los pájaros – Catalan traditional

The classic Catalan cant dels ocells, made famous by Pau Casals.

06. Les pleurs – Mr. de Sainte-Colombe (c. 1640 – c. 1700)
07. Allemande – Mr. de Sainte-Colombe
08. Sarabande. Le pleureux – Mr. de Sainte-Colombe

Marais’s teacher, Sainte-Colombe was the first great French master of the viola da gamba. His pieces are characteristically melancholy.

09. Les sauvages – Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

A version of the famous operatic passage from Rameau’s Les indes galantes.

10. Les voix humaines – Marin Marais (1656-1728)
11. La guitare – Marin Marais

Marais was the viola da gamba master par excellence, a leading figure at the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

12. Always with me, always with you – Joe Satriani (1956)

From baroque guitar to electric guitar: Fahmi Alqhai covers the great Satriani.

13. Andante from the Sonata BWV 1003 – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Bach, as an encore.