Jordi Savall (treble viol, lyra viol), Andrew Lawrence- King (Irish harp, psalterion), Frank McGuire (bodhrán) AliaVox AVSA 9878 ***

Jordi Savall’s essay accompanying his first Celtic Viol collection, which merged the worlds of Irish and Scottish music and period instruments practice, was subtitled “In praise of transmission”. The subtitle on the second collection is “Tradition and Innovation”. This time he uses bass as well as treble viol, and he’s joined not only by Andrew Lawrence-King on Irish harp and psaltery, but also by Frank McGuire on bodhrán for the dances. The approach second time round is free rather than circumspect – “deliberately sober” was Savall’s own original description. And, rather than keep within the imagined perspective of a few centuries ago, he’s now liberated himself to dip into much more recent approaches to traditional music. To my ears, there’s more loss than gain in the dilution of refinement.

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