Elegant Nations, where the gamba is king

Le Concert des Nations
Jordi Savall, director and viola da gamba
At: Emmanuel Church
(Thursday night)

It's hard to imagine another local classical music audience quite as loyal and devoted as the city's early music fans. On Saturday night, neither dreary weather nor the World Series game could keep a large crowd from packing into Emmanuel Church and listening in rapt silence to the gambist Jordi Savall and colleagues.

It helped no doubt that Savall is a quietly towering figure on the international early music scene. His performance on the soundtrack of Alain Corneau's 1991 film "Tous les Matins du Monde" - or "All the Mornings of the World" - earned him a following far beyond the field's niche audience, and his steady stream of tours and recordings kept him firmly at the top of his field ever since. With its small, somewhat sunken tone, the viola da gamba might seem an unlikely vehicle for stardom, but Savall has a calmly commanding stage presence, and his playing is all soft-spoken elegance and mellow beauty.

On this visit, presented by the Boston Early Music Festival, he appeared with his Concert des Nations ensemble, leading off the program with a lively and rhythmically charged account of Lully's "Marche pour le Cérémonie des Turcs," a work that also appeared in the Corneau film. Savall then joined forces with the gambist Philippe Pierlot for a soulful, honey-toned duet by Sainte-Colombe. The program went on to feature music of Sainte-Colombe's son and works by Charpentier, Couperin, Marais, Forqueray, and Leclair.

The Prelude of Marais's Fourth Suite (from his fourth book) drew some of Savall's most expansively lyrical playing of the evening, but this was far from a one-man-show. The ensemble has an admirably flexible sound, capable of both smooth instrumental blends as well as soloistic spotlighting when necessary. Marc Hantaï's warm and focused tone on the transverse flute was the highlight of one selection by Couperin; violinist Riccardo Minasi shone to fine virtuoso effect in the Sonata à Trois (Op. 1, No. 8) by Leclair; harpsichordist Luca Guglielmi gave an eloquent solo performance of two movements from Couperin's third book of harpsichord pieces; and Enrique Solinis's theorbo playing formed a solid anchor through much of the evening. His guitar playing drove a wonderfully animated encore - an anonymous "Bourée D'Avignonez" from the court of Louis XIII.

It is apparently unusual for Savall to appear in Boston without a vocalist as part of his band. But as this distinctive program suggested, with the vocal-like qualities of Savall's own playing and an excellent ensemble to complement him, none was necessary.

Jeremy Eichler can be reached at jeichler@globe.com.