CDs featuring early music from Latin America have appeared regularly in recent years, and the striking thing is that little repertoire has been duplicated. Obviously the field of Renaissance and Baroque music from the Spanish-speaking New World (Brazil is something else yet again) is a large field whose riches haven't yet been even close to fully tapped. This disc by the British choir and instrumental ensemble Ex Cathedra presents mostly music by composers who worked in South America, but the characteristic mixture of ...
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CDs featuring early music from Latin America have appeared regularly in recent years, and the striking thing is that little repertoire has been duplicated. Obviously the field of Renaissance and Baroque music from the Spanish-speaking New World (Brazil is something else yet again) is a large field whose riches haven't yet been even close to fully tapped. This disc by the British choir and instrumental ensemble Ex Cathedra presents mostly music by composers who worked in South America, but the characteristic mixture of styles -- high-style polyphony; the semi-popular (and semi-sacred) Spanish villancico, which might have an African influence; and simple, rather mystical pieces in Amerindian languages (here Quechua and Nahuatl) -- that makes the Latin American repertory as a whole so fascinating is fully in evidence. It's a lovely disc, and fully worth investigating for those who have been snared by this unique Latin sound. Ex Cathedra's approach to the repertory differs from that heard on the other...
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