Hirundo Maris SILENT NIGHT

The year ends its round. This is the time when the night is sovereign. In the dark, faces move away. Life goes to sleep. The hours move differently. Everything is different: the familiar trees, the streets of the village, the sounds of the house. Strange face of the world, frightening mystery of darkness. When winter comes, the great ancestral fear comes back too, the anguish rising from the origins. When will the day come back? When will the light be reborn? When will life return to its colors? And what if the world should descend into eternal night and cold? What if the old world should die? At the solstice people approach the stars; their hearts are frightened by their smallness and weakness. So, wisely, they contemplate the universe, and the place of their small world in a big world. It is the time of celebrations. To ward off fear, people gather. They hope for the promise of a new dawn. They seek illumination in the fires they light. Innumerable, the years that make up the history of humanity. Innumerable, the destinies that have crossed the bridge of time. The human tapestry unfolds through the seasons. Some stitches are marked with gold. Here is the story that has illuminated, forever and forever, the march of humans down the centuries. 

Hirundo Maris, the ensemble led by the Catalan Arianna Savall and the Norwegian Petter Udland Johansen, invites us on a mystical journey into the magic world of winter, Advent and Christmas music. This special programme of music, assembled by Hirundo Maris, contains songs with traditional roots and ancient origins, songs from the North and the South, filled with rejoicing, and songs of the present that embrace the songs of the past. Hirundo Maris is characterized by very personal and creative musical arrangements and a love of the past merging with the present. In this programme the ancient spirit harmonizes with the modern.

Arianna Savall / Petter Udland Johansen HIRUNDO MARIS

Arianna Savall’s leader debut for the New Series follows her distinguished contributions to Rolf Lislevand’s “Nuove Musiche” and to Helena Tulve’s “Lijnen”, – sensuous early music on the one hand, bracingly contemporary composition on the other. In both genres she has proven to be a charismatic singer. Now comes “Hirundo Maris” which, with its very fresh instrumental textures, follows another trajectory.

Savall and band co-leader Petter Udland Johansen describe their project as a journey linking the Mediterranean and the North Sea. Hirundo Maris is Latin for “sea swallow” and, like that bird’s flight, the quintet – part early music ensemble, part folk group – drifts on musical currents between Norway and Catalonia, adds its own songs, created on the wing, and swoops down to dive beneath the surface of things. Near the centre of the sound are Arianna’s sparkling harps and the drones of Johansen’s Hardanger fiddle; when the colours of the mandolin and more unexpectedly the Dobro (not often heard outside bluegrass contexts) are added, a message is sent about the universality of song as well as of the transatlantic travels of old ballads…  

Savall and Johansen have shaped a band with a bright, glistening timbral blend, capped by Arianna’s ice-clear voice, eminently well-equipped to address songs of the north and the south. It is a voice already familiar to many who have followed the outstanding work of her parents, Catalan viol master Jordi Savall and singer Montserrat Figueras: until 2008 Arianna played and sang as a member of her father’s ensembles, including Hespèrion XXI. Since then, she has been devoting much of her time to the Hirundo Maris project.

Of their “Chants du Sud et du Nord” Arianna and Petter Udland Johansen write: “From remote times, north and south have been linked by waterways navigated by the Vikings of Norway. Catalans and the Sephardic Jews have also shared this love of the sea, which through a common melancholy at some deep level connects peoples seemingly poles apart. 

We discover subtle bridges of song, where a Catalan song and a Norwegian tune are linked by common rhythms and modes, or a Norwegian ballad and a Sephardic song share the same key... The origin of this project is the emblematic Catalan song ‘El Mariner’, which is very popular in the coastal regions of Catalonia and recounts the story of the love between a Mediterranean maiden and a knight from northern lands. This typical European sea shanty in the form of a dialogue is also sung to a very similar tune on the coast of Scotland. Could these intangible bridges have been forged by the numerous voyages of Vikings, Catalans, Scots and Sephardic Jews?” “Hirundo Maris” sets off in search of the answer.

“Hirundo Maris: Chants du Sud et du Nord” was recorded in January 2011 in the Austrian monastery of St Gerold, with Manfred Eicher producing. Arianna has dedicated the recording to the memory of her mother, Montserrat Figueras. (ECM Records)

Arianna Savall / Petter Udland Johansen HIRUNDO MARIS: CHANTS DU SUD ET DU NORD

Arianna Savall’s leader debut for the New Series follows her distinguished contributions to Rolf Lislevand’s “Nuove musiche” and to Helena Tulve’s “Lijnen”, – sensuous early music on the one hand, bracingly contemporary composition on the other. In both genres she has proven to be a charismatic singer. Now comes “Hirundo Maris” which, with its very fresh instrumental textures, follows another trajectory.
Savall and band co-leader Petter Udland Johansen describe their project as a journey linking the Mediterranean and the North Sea. Hirundo Maris is Latin for “sea swallow” and, like that bird’s flight, the quintet – part early music ensemble, part folk group – drifts on musical currents between Norway and Catalonia, adds its own songs, created on the wing, and swoops down to dive beneath the surface of things. Near the centre of the sound are Arianna’s sparkling harps and the drones of Johansen’s Hardanger fiddle; when the colours of the mandolin and more unexpectedly the Dobro (not often heard outside bluegrass contexts) are added, a message is sent about the universality of song as well as of the transatlantic travels of old ballads…
Savall and Johansen have shaped a band with a bright, glistening timbral blend, capped by Arianna’s ice-clear voice, eminently well-equipped to address songs of the north and the south. It is a voice already familiar to many who have followed the outstanding work of her parents, Catalan viol master Jordi Savall and singer Montserrat Figueras: until 2008 Arianna played and sang as a member of her father’s ensembles, including Hespèrion XXI. Since then, she has been devoting much of her time to the Hirundo Maris project.
Of their “Chants du Sud et du Nord” Arianna and Petter Udland Johansen write, “From remote times, north and south have been linked by waterways navigated by the Vikings of Norway. Catalans and the Sephardic Jews have also shared this love of the sea, which through a common melancholy at some deep level connects peoples seemingly poles apart. We discover subtle bridges of song, where a Catalan song and a Norwegian tune are linked by common rhythms and modes, or a Norwegian ballad and a Sephardic song share the same key... The origin of this project is the emblematic Catalan song ‘El Mariner’, which is very popular in the coastal regions of Catalonia and recounts the story of the love between a Mediterranean maiden and a knight from northern lands. This typical European sea shanty in the form of a dialogue is also sung to a very similar tune on the coast of Scotland. Could these intangible bridges have been forged by the numerous voyages of Vikings, Catalans, Scots and Sephardic Jews?” “Hirundo Maris” sets off in search of the answer.  
“Hirundo Maris: Chants du Sud et du Nord” was recorded in January 2011 in the Austrian monastery of St Gerold, with Manfred Eicher producing. Arianna has dedicated the recording to the memory of her mother, Montserrat Figuerras. (ECM Records)