Interview with the family Savall 2003

Arianna Savall
Ferran Savall
Montserrat Figueras
Jordi Savall

conversa familial

A: When you met and started, did you think that you would create something as beautiful as Hesperion? Or was that a dream that came later? Did you have the desire from the beginning to create something special together?
M: It's impossible to foresee that. When we first met we had to learn a lot and get used to each other, we couldn't foresee what we would do, just like now we can't foresee what we will do in the future.

J: The only thing is that we met before we were in love with each other. We were making music together, Montserrat was singing and I was playing. That's why we first had the experience of making music together and then we became a couple. At first, each could develop for himself, so to speak. It was only when we studied in Basel that we started to perform together, Montserrat sang and I played the viola. But we also played together with other people, it was not yet obvious to us that we would necessarily do something together.

Q: But everybody has a dream. From there, when you started doing something together when you were 25 or 26, didn't you have a dream? Was that dream fulfilled or did you not expect the whole thing: to form three groups, to play your music all over the world and to work together for so long, with the good and bad moments?

M: Yes, we had many dreams. You have dreams every day, but you don't know if they will come true. You only know that you are walking a path with many surprises and an open destination. But we had many hopes and a great will to do things, in our case to renew and revive certain musical genres that had fallen into oblivion. To play forgotten manuscripts... From the moment we started working in libraries, first in Paris, then in Switzerland, in the British Museum... we already had a path in mind, but the concrete form of this path was not completely clear. You don't know that until it's all over.
F: Yes, of course.

J: I could never imagine at that time what we were doing, both on the musical level and on the family level. Our dreams at that time were to make music, make money... but we were in a beginning phase and that's why it was so difficult to imagine everything we achieved after that. For example, when we made the music for "All Mornings in the World" (The Seventh String), we already knew we were doing something special, but couldn't foresee what the consequences would be. It was the same when we were together with Hopkinson Smith, or with Lars Zappel, with whom we formed Hesperion XX in 1974. That was a magical moment, working with people like that, researching, thinking of new programs... But in that moment, what interested us was to make music with these people and get to the bottom of things. We weren't thinking about success or fame, but how we could make everything better. What came after that was a surprise. Of course we hoped for a good result, but it was a surprise.