Laudatio

Abstract

It is my great honour and pleasure to present Mr Jordi Savall i Bernadet, one of the greatest contemporary musicians, composers, musicologists, teachers, and – within a broad perspective – humanists. Let me begin with a handful of important facts, making up the extraordinary biography and outstanding work of Mr Savall. I should start with dates, which often bear symbolic significance for many of us and leave a permanent mark on our fortunes. “A date functions like a proper name” – wrote Jacques Derrida in his famous essay Shibboleth for Paul Celan, a true meditation upon a date. Not just a date of birth, but various other dates, representing thresholds and breakthroughs in the life of every human being (...).