# Hispania & Japan: Dialogues



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

"The World is a book
and those who do not travel
read only one page."
-St. Augustine of Hippo 5th c.

For all the recent discussion of Herbert von Karajan, the conductor whose efforts I have been listening to the most recently is surely Jordi Savall.

Jordi Savall's _The Road to the Orient_, released in 2006, presented a musical portrait of Francisco Javier and his remarkable trip from Spain to Japan. During his own travels for research and preparation for this new set, Savall met a group of talented Japanese musicians who soon became friends and with whom he performed in many concerts around the world. Repackaged following the catastrophes in Japan, Savall's _Hispania & Japan: Dialogues_ is a specially priced album that features the most significant pieces from the musical dialogue between Spain and Japan. Alia Vox's deluxe packaging includes the usual comprehensive, richly illustrated and highly informative hardcover book plus a special bonus a miniature fold-out Japanese screen replica depicting the arrival of the first Europeans in Japan. Alia Vox is donating all profits from the sale of this set to the Japanese Red Cross.










Francisco Javier (Xavier) was born in 1506 in the Kingdom of Navarre. He was a pioneering Roman Catholic missionary and a co-founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He studied under St. Ignatius of Loyola and led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time. He was influential in the spreading and upkeep of Catholicism most notably in India, Japan, and Borneo. Javier was known for singing psalms, much to the fascination of the native people, as he strode about through the islands of Japan. People traveled far to see the distinguished Jesuit. In 1605, some 50 years after Javier's death, a publisher in Nagasaki brought out an edition of Javier's psalms and other religious songs in a text entitled, _Manuale ad Sacramenta_. These 19 songs, including the _Gloriosa Domina_ represent the first influx of Western music in Japan. While Christianity was officially banned in Japan in 1613, its practice (and the music) continued clandestinely in certain island communities near Nagasaki.

The music here presents the interweaving's of Eastern and Western traditions. The disc as a whole is held together by a series of improvisations upon the Shakuhachi flute of the well-kno Gregorian Chant, _Gloriosa Domina_. The disc as a whole conveys a marriage of the spiritual musical traditions of the east and the West.


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