Santiago de Murcia - Jacaras! - Paul O'Dette, Baroque Guitar

 

Release Date: 03/11/2008 Label: Harmonia Mundi Number of discs: 1 Composer: Santiago de Murcia Performer: Paul O'Dette cd info/ buy

Review:

"A group of scamps and high-spirited people who walk around at night making a racket and singing in the streets." Not English holiday-makers, but a Spanish dictionary’s description of the so-called jaques, whose lifestyle is depicted in the style of music known as the jacaras. The music on this disc, for all its own high spirits, is not drawn directly from the repertoire of these ‘underworld ruffians’ (as Grove calls them), but instead from two manuscript collections of guitar music by Santiago de Murcia, guitarist to a succession of royals and aristocrats in Spain, Naples and Mexico during the first half of the eighteenth century. As one might expect then, there is music here of a courtly and cultured sort (including adaptations of violin music by Corelli, all of which Paul O’Dette plays with customary grace and languid lyrical ease). But what listeners will undoubtedly find more striking are the boisterous and highly rhythmic dances in the style of improvised variations on simple chord patterns, and characterized by the sort of hard-driven guitar-strumming which those English holiday-makers may well be more used to hearing. A glance at the titles above should suffice to give an impression of their exotic range, and played here by assorted ensembles of guitars, harp and percussion, they are utterly irresistible in their infectious rhythms and often surprisingly modern-sounding harmonies and textures. Clearly Murcia’s employers enjoyed letting their hair down from time to time; indeed, anyone who could remain still while listening to this music must have feet of stone.--Gramophone

 

flac, covers