The Sonatas Novohispanas II title of this disc is a bit misleading; at least some and perhaps most of the music, unlike on La Fontegara's Sonatas Novohispanas, is European, not composed in New Spain. There are instrumental sonatas by the Italian Pietro Antonio Locatelli and by an unknown composer named Puchinger, several works by the Spaniard Santiago de Murcia, who lived in Mexico toward the end of his life, and 12 anonymous single-movement "sonatas," effectively grouped by La Fontegara in three sets of four. These last ...
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The Sonatas Novohispanas II title of this disc is a bit misleading; at least some and perhaps most of the music, unlike on La Fontegara's Sonatas Novohispanas, is European, not composed in New Spain. There are instrumental sonatas by the Italian Pietro Antonio Locatelli and by an unknown composer named Puchinger, several works by the Spaniard Santiago de Murcia, who lived in Mexico toward the end of his life, and 12 anonymous single-movement "sonatas," effectively grouped by La Fontegara in three sets of four. These last two groups may indeed have originated in Mexico, but the works by Santiago de Murcia are not among those by this composer that show the influence of music he could have heard in New Spain. In short, the music here follows European models. As the liner notes point out, although the Mexican manuscripts from which the music was taken date from the late eighteenth century, the stylistic locus runs from Corelli to the style galant works of C.P.E. Bach.That said, the disc brings...
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