Very few artists transform the scholarly into the genuinely entertaining as successfully as Jordi Savall. He makes early music accessible and fun, and this disc, part of the continuing series of retro-fitted hybrid SACD releases from Alia Vox, is no exception. This time the subject is the folia, loosely translated as “insanity” (or “folly”) but whose structure has origins in popular Portuguese dance, and this release offers myriad variations on the theme in a rambunctious free-form romp through 200 years of history. Most of these pieces rest on the foundation of four chords (in various progressions) upon which the players improvise, a talent for which Savall and his crew have earned an enviable reputation, and one that’s on ample display throughout this disc.
The Corelli and Marais works are well known, but they stand out with greater interest against their earlier exemplars, Ortiz, Enzina, and Cabezón. Savall enthusiastically probes the Iberian background of these pieces, supplementing the “diferencias” by Antonio Martín y Coll with castenets, a questionably “authentic” touch but one that certainly adds to their implicit flamboyance. Percussion fits prominently and naturally into most of these energetic works to magnificent effect: for instance, the opening “Rodrigo Martinez” folia comes across as a rhythmic extravaganza. Here too, the subtle qualities of the SACD medium reveal some of the strengths of the scoring, as the rainbow of timbres simply flies from the speakers with unimpeded liveliness. But, as with most SACDs borne of high-resolution stock (in this case, a five-year-old 96 kHz/24-bit original master), the differences will be minimal to all but audiophiles with fabled golden ears.
