One time I heard him live
in San Francisco
with my friend Juliette
who'd introduced me
to the world of viols
he played Ortiz from the mid
fifteen hundreds
pieces I myself had tried
the notes aren't hard
but he made music happen
such as I had not thought possible
the Bach sonata too was flawless but
it was the Astrée recording
won my heart
made in France forty-five years ago
the church in
dance suites from 1685 composed
by the a viol player known only as
Sieur de Machy
Savall performed them on an instrument
from de Machy's time
the sound on the LP is indescribable
rich, deep, melancholy, lyrical
evocative of a world
distant from ours
not just by centuries
but by its sensual delicacy
intensity expressed
with a restraint
that we have mostly lost
these dance suites seem
too intimate for dancing
the bass strings
reaching deeper than a cello
as if to ground the upper voices
in the earth
the high notes plaintive
trembling with pure feeling
only a true master such as Savall was
and is today as he approaches eighty
with his Catalan and Spanish sensibilities
could liberate the spirit hidden
in this music from a another world
and leave me an astonished listener