Máté Csabai: You are considered a pioneer of the viola da gamba, an instrument that was the precursor to the cello. It is held between the knees when playing. Was the instrument truly unknown when you began playing it?

Jordi Savall: It really was! Or if there were old gambas out there, they were played the way modern cellos are played, using a completely different bow technique and approach. Composers like Marin Marais or Sainte-Colombe, whose works are essential parts of the viola da gamba repertoire, were almost completely unknown to the audience.

M. Cs.: Tell us about the process that led you from being a cellist to a player of early music.

J. S.: I spent weeks at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, at the Royal Library of Belgium and the library of the British Museum, where I found a considerable set of documents, including sheet music and textbooks on how to play this instrument. This was in the sixties, and I was in my mid-twenties. In 1968, I enrolled in the Schola Cantorum institute in Bazel, and asked my master, August Wenzinger, to help me perfect my gamba playing. I wanted to play like Marin Marais! Only after another three years had passed, did I begin giving concerts. Until that point, it was all about preparation.

M. Cs.: Playing early music is a little like time travel. Who would you want to meet if you could go back to the Renaissance or the Baroque?

J. S.: What a question! Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. And, of course, Sainte-Colombe and Marin Marais.

M. Cs.: You have produced a number of recordings in the last fifty years. How much of your work was science and how much of it was about being an artist as you tried to stay true to the period in question? Was it about possessing a precise knowledge, or imagination, a knack for beauty, to shape your sound?

J. S.: Before forming Hesperion XX, I spent ten years, day in and day out, from morning to evening, poring over sheet music and period sources, learning and playing music and developing the right knowledge, along with the correct sense of style and taste. The music itself was my master. If an artist keeps their ear open, if they are a good professional who is disciplined and conscientious, they will find the key to early music. The music will come naturally. But the essence is really the human factor: music must be performed and filled with emotion and flavor. Let me ask you: how many musicians do you know today who spend ten years doing nothing but studying, without entering the limelight? None, right? People want to come out too quickly and too soon; they have no time to engross themselves in the music.

M. Cs.: At your concert in Budapest, you will conduct pieces by Handel and Telemann, as well as Gluck. He is often overlooked next to Haydn and Mozart, even though he was not only a forerunner, but a pioneer of the classical period.

J. S.: Gluck really was an extraordinary composer. His music is filled with fantastic energy, expressionism, surprises and beauty. He was an inspiration to Haydn and Mozart. Just think of the piece we will be performing, Don Juan, which Mozart drew from when he composed his own Don Giovanni.

M. Cs.: What will be extra special about taking a historical approach to perform Gluck’s music?

J. S.: When Gluck began composing, another star of our concert, Handel, was still alive. The dominant style in Europe at the time was shifting: Baroque pomp was being replaced by polished classicism. But this did not happen overnight. Our approach is a better representation of the evolution of music: when we perform Gluck, we look at his music from the Baroque, since that is where it originated. In the same way, it makes more sense to perform Beethoven from Haydn’s direction and not from that of Wagner. Music history, just as time itself, is always moving forward and never back; but if we take an opposing approach, we might miss many interesting elements.

M. Cs.: During the years of Handel and Gluck, in the mid-18th century, the role of the conductor was also not entirely developed. The role of the modern conductor emerged only a good fifty years later, at the start of the Romantic period. What is your approach?

J. S.: I am not a typical conductor who has devoted his whole life to learning to conduct. I am a musician, and I make music. My job is to ensure that the ensemble play music using the right emphases, tempo and emotional content. Before the emergence of the tailcoat-wearing, baton-wielding conductor figure we know today, orchestra leaders went about achieving this in various ways. My methods are also more liberal than those of my colleagues.

M. Cs.: You perform regularly with the early music ensemble of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. What makes working with them enjoyable for you?

J. S.: They are excellent musicians who are always open to new impressions. I also feel that they are in good hands. They have a good conductor, because they have retained their freshness and flexibility. This is the most a visiting conductor could ask for, and especially someone who comes with demands different from the norm. And this also means that they play just as well in a modern symphony orchestra as they do as members of their own early music ensemble, using period instruments.

M. Cs.: I understand that your most recent project deals with the question of wars in Europe. How do you convey this through music?

J. S.: I would say I’m interested in war and peace. European history is a series of conflicts; the fighting was always followed by solemn peace treaties, and these have left their musical marks. Erasmus’s words represent the guidelines; we devoted a recording to him a decade ago. The great humanist said that the majority of people despise war and desire peace, but also wrote elsewhere that anyone who has ever hunted a human being would never want to hunt anything else again.