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█ █ P U B L I C . S O U N D
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█ █ presenting our latest release
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r e l e a s e . i n f o
Artist.....: VA
Title......: Francisco Javier - The Route to the Orient
Rip Date...: Mar-25-2009 Cat.No.....: AVSA9856A+B
Style......: Classical Label......: Alia Vox
Quality....: VBRkbps Type.......: Album
Size.......: 195,5 MB Source.....: CDDA
r e l e a s e . n o t e s
The World is a book,
and those who do not travel
read only a page.ö
St. Augustine of Hippo (5th century)
Although we had been intrigued for many years by the extraordinary
travels of Francis Xavier, the seminal idea for this programme
began to take shape in the spring of 1996, when we were invited by
the Festival of St. Florent le Vieil to give a concert with
Spanish and Japanese musicians to commemorate Francis XavierÆs
arrival in Japan. The programme was entitled ô1549 RITUALS &
PROPHECIES: Japan & Spain in the time of Saint Francis Xavier.ö
The concert was performed on 10th July, 1996, in the Abbey of St.
Florent, with the participation of Montserrat Figueras, soloists
of La Capella Reial de Catalunya and members of HESP╚RION XX, and
the Japanese musicians Yumiko Kaneko, Ichiro Seki and Masako
Hirao. A few months later, the same programme was performed in
Tochigi, Kyoto, Yamaguchi and Tokyo. Ten years later, in 2006,
most of that original group of Spanish and Japanese musicians came
together again to mark the 400th anniversary of the birth of
Francis Xavier, and we took the opportunity to give a number of
concerts and prepare the recording of this fascinating new
CD/book.
The commemoration of Francis XavierÆs arrival in Japan and his
subsequent death was the initial reason behind the project, but
the basic idea which inspired the development and content of this
programme grew out of our wonder and admiration at his incredible
epic journey and, above all, the spiritual and human dimension of
Francis Xavier. This is the astonishing story of a man who lived
both his life and his beliefs intensely and rigorously practised
all the fundamental rules of the newly-formed Society of Jesus:
rules of poverty, charity, abnegation and sacrifice for the sake
of the most humble and the outcasts of society. A true apostle of
his faith who, in less than twelve years, and despite the limited
means available in his age, travelled almost 100,000 kilometres:
Driven by the force of his beliefs, and bravely confronting the
most dangerous of circumstances, he defied the power and pride of
the bonzes to lay the foundations of new Christian communities.
Accompanied by Portuguese missionaries, Francis Xavier disembarked
in Kagoshima in 1549. On his way to the island of Hirado, where
there was an established community of Europeans, he would stride
along singing psalms - much to the fascination of the local
people, who turned out in large numbers and travelled long
distances to see the distinguished Jesuits pass by. But it was not
until about 1605 that a Japanese publisher in Nagasaki brought out
the first edition of the Manuale ad Sacramenta, a volume
containing nineteen of these religious songs, including the
ôGloriosa Dominaö. This date marks the beginnings of western music
in Japan. It was to be an ephemeral flowering, however, because in
1613 Christianity was banned in Japan and it was only thanks to
the continued practice of certain clandestine Christian
communities in the islands near Nagasaki that the Manuale ad
Sacramenta was passed down to the present day under the name of
Prayer.
The forty-seven years of Francis XavierÆs life unfolded at a
crucial time in the history of western civilisation, particularly
in the case of the Christian religion. A half-century that was
shaken and shaped by a series of seismic and decisive events: the
consolidation of the Renaissance, the rise of Humanism, the Schism
of the Reformation, and the reaction of the Counter-Reformation,
which in turn gave rise to the Society of Jesus. It was also a
period which witnessed the publication of highly original works of
literature and philosophy that were profoundly critical of the
religious and political hierarchies of the day. Such works include
ErasmusÆs Praise of Folly, dedicated to his friend Thomas More,
who was the author of Utopia, an extraordinary text containing the
blueprint for an ideal world. It was also the period in which
Martin LutherÆs 95 Theses and MachiavelliÆs The Prince appeared.
It was at precisely that time that Francis Xavier, on his journey
to the East, was confronted with all the major Oriental systems of
belief: Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Nestorian
Christianity. That is why we wish to reproduce a sample of the
majority of the texts and beliefs which made a mark on that
extraordinary fifty-year span, with a selection and introduction
to the principal texts by the poet and academic Manuel Forcano.
In the words of Elias Canetti, ôMusic is the true living history
of humankind, and we put our faith in it because what it says
relates to our feelings; without it, we would be left with only
lifeless fragments.ö (Die Provinz des Menschen, Aufzeichnungen
1942-1972, Carl HanserVerlag, Mⁿnchen-Wien, 1973; in English
translation: The Human Province, Seabury Press, 1978). All these
texts, all these fascinating stories, would lack something of
their true life without their corresponding music. To recall in
only 160 minutes of music (the space available on these two CDs)
the key stages in the life of Francis Xavier and, at the same
time, to draw closer to some of the most important landmarks of
our own modern history, are objectives that we can only achieve
through some of the most significant music that we believe or
imagine the protagonists of the period would have listened to and
loved. This is not descriptive music, but music from the courts of
Navarre, Spain, Paris and Italy, sacred and profane music which
evokes historical events (Navarre, Pavia, Wittenberg). These
musical pages reveal the spirit and the atmosphere of life at
court (Henry VIII), in the cities (Venice, Paris, Rome, Goa) and
in different countries (the drums and the oud of Africa, the sarod
and the tabla of India, the flutes, the Biwa and the chants of
Japan). The rich vein of the Golden Age Spanish and Portuguese
chansonniers who were the contemporaries of Francis Xavier has
yielded up religious works by Joanes Ponce, Juan del Encina,
Cristobal de Morales and other anonymous authors in Spanish, Latin
and Portuguese which admirably echo and illustrate the mysticism
and intense spirituality of Francis Xavier.
ôThe World is a book, and those who do not travel read only one
pageö, said St. Augustine of Hippo. Francis Xavier was a great
apostle, but he was also a reader of the World. He had a desire
for knowledge, and to fulfil that desire he boldly and fearlessly
travelled eastward, on route to the Orient: Ex Oriente Lux, light
comes from the East. His route took him on a long and arduous
journey to Africa, and then India, and from the Indian
sub-continent to the Far East, first to the mysterious land of
Japan and then onward to the very gates of inaccessible China.
First the energy, and then the strength and determination that
propelled him undaunted in pursuit of his goals, were born out of
his principles, his faith and his desire to learn and to teach.
Nothing could discourage him: ôIf I canÆt find a boatö, he once
said, ôI will swim thereö. Wherever he went, Francis Xavier
learned the language of the local people so that he could
communicate, laugh and sing with them, so that he could be one of
them.
The lands in the East that he visited first were Portuguese
colonies on the east coasts of Africa, India, Ceylon and the
islands of Indonesia. There he witnessed the abuses of colonial
power, the injustice of masters who exploited and humiliated their
slaves, and all the suffering experienced by the outcasts of this
world. And he did not hesitate to speak out against these ills and
to do what he could to redress them, even challenging the
authorities themselves, when necessary, to ensure that the dignity
and rights of the native peoples were respected: ôIndians have the
same feelings as ourselvesö. Tireless and steadfast in his
determination, he allowed no barrier or difficulty to stand in his
way. Moved by his desire to take the message of Jesus to the most
impenetrable lands of the East, he reached as far as Japan and
attempted to enter China, a country that was strictly forbidden to
foreigners. The driving force and goal of all his travels was to
take to those lands the consolation of a faith which preached the
salvation of the soul; his presence and his words in those remote
civilisations convinced thousands of men and women of all kinds
and conditions. He was not afraid to remind kings of those words
of Jesus that were so often quoted by Ignatius Loyola that he made
them his own: ôWhat shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the
whole world and lose his own soul?ö In those countries he is to
this day remembered and venerated as the ôconqueror of soulsö.
They made him a saint.
In this CD-book, which charts Francis XavierÆs travels û from old
Europe to the land of the rising sun û with the help of extracts
from his letters, passages from the most representative texts of
his age and a selection of music from the period and from the
(still vibrant) musical cultures that he encountered on his
journey to the East, we wish to express our own sincere homage to
Francis Xavier. If the world is a book, it is one that Francis
Xavier read from cover to cover.
JORDI SAVALL
Geneva, autumn 2007
p l a y l i s t
cd1 ..
..
01 ANONYMOUS - Alba & Rotundellus 02:25
02 P. DE ESCOBAR - Villancico: Virgen Bendita CMP 03:40
416 ..
03 ANONYMOUS - Consort XXI (Anon. Henry VIII mss.) 01:47
04 J. PONCE - Villancico: Francia, cuenta tu 02:54
ganancia CMP 443 ..
05 ANONYMOUS - Paduana (Mss. Venezia) 0 03:00
06 ANONYMOUS - Villancico: Dios te salve, Cruz 04:46
preciosa (CMP 434) ..
07 J. LLOYD - Puzzle-canon I (Henry VIII mss.) 02:36
08 H. ISAAC - Song: O Welt, Ich muss dich lassen 02:51
(sopra Innsbruck, Ich muss dich lassen) ..
09 Jordi Savall - Pavana "La Bataglia" 02:07
10 CL. SERMISY - Benedic Anima mea 03:11
11 Jordi Savall - Psalterio (improvisation) 00:37
12 Jordi Savall - O Gloriosa Domina I (Gregorian) 00:37
13 VENEGAS DE HENESTROSA - Himno XX O Gloriosa 01:47
Domina ..
14 Jordi Savall - Quod Eva tristis (Gregorian II) 00:38
15 L. DE NARVAEZ - Diferencia II O Gloriosa Domina 00:59
16 Jordi Savall - Tu regis alti ianua 00:39
(Gregorian III) ..
17 Jordi Savall - Improvisation (Psalterium) 00:28
18 CH. TYE - In Nomine Seldom sene 02:09
19 ANONYMOUS - Villancico: Adoramus te Se±or 03:33
(CMP 420) ..
20 H. ISAAC - Benedictus (a 3) 02:30
21 ANONYMOUS - Saltarello (mss. Venecia) 01:08
22 C. DE MORALES - Sanctus 03:31
23 J. DEL ENCINA - Villancico: PuΘs que tu, Reyna 03:31
del Cielo (CMP 442) ..
24 Jordi Savall - Percussions from Africa. Dir. 02:24
Lahoucine Baquir ..
25 Jordi Savall - Impressions. Driss El Maloumi 04:24
(Oud) ..
26 ANONYMOUS - Villancico: Senhora del Mundo 05:17
(CMBPÆ N║ 74 PORTUGALI╞ MUSICA N║ 23) ..
27 Jordi Savall - O Gloriosa Domina I (Gregorian) 01:56
28 Jordi Savall - Raga on O Gloriosa Domina 10:19
..
cd2 ..
..
01 Jordi Savall - Shino no netori. Shinobue 03:47
02 C. DE MORALES - INVITATORIUM: Regem cui 13:07
03 Jordi Savall - Honn⌠ji. Biwa & voice 10:38
04 Jordi Savall - Psalterium 01:14
(impro.) O Gloriosa Domina I ..
05 Jordi Savall - O Gloriosa. Shakuhashi 02:05
06 Jordi Savall - Quod Eva tristis II 00:38
07 Jordi Savall - Improvisation I. Biwa & Shinobue 01:58
08 Jordi Savall - Tu regis alti ianua III 00:40
09 Jordi Savall - Improvisation II. Shakuhashi & 03:16
Biwa ..
10 Jordi Savall - Patri sit Paraclito IV 00:41
11 Jordi Savall - O Gloriosa. Biwa 01:39
12 Jordi Savall - O Gloriosa Domina û Amen 00:53
13 Jordi Savall - Reibo, Shakuhachi 10:51
14 F. DE LA TORRE - Villancico : Adoramus te Domine 03:58
(CMP 444) ..
15 Jordi Savall - Improv. Senhora del Mundo Tablas 02:43
& Sarod ..
16 Jordi Savall - Improvisation 01:00
17 Jordi Savall - O Gloriosa Domina Diferencia I 01:16
(Vihuela) ..
18 C. DE MORALES - In Secundo Nocturno "Ne 05:02
Recorderis" ..
19 FANTASIA - (Instrumental March) 01:52
20 Jordi Savall - Rangyoku, Nokan 06:46
21 ANONYMOUS (CHINA) - Ave Maria (pentatonic) 04:55
154:43 min
g r e e t i n g s
agw - amok - bass - bcc - bex - boss - cmg - cmc - cms - d2h
def - dh - disc0 - drum - emp - ftd - fwyh - gem - i8 - ipc
jce - jfk - jrp - just - khz - kinky - kw - lame - maem - mbs
mgc - psycz - r2r - rac - radial - rapid - rks - rtb - sb
sever - sfe - soup - sour - sq - tr - trt - ube - uc - upe
uki - xtc - yard - zi
respect to music lovers worldwide
never forget : go to the show. buy the t-shirt. order the vinyl