Esa Noche Yo Baila – Feast and Devotion in High Peru of the 17th Century – Musica Ficta – ARTS

by | Dec 13, 2006 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

Esa Noche Yo Baila – Feast and Devotion in High Peru of the 17th Century – Musica Ficta – ARTS Multichannel SACD 47727-8, 69:41 *****:

This superb album explores the proposed relationship of the sacred and secular as expressed in music during the Hispanic-American Baroque era in Peru and other South American countries, not neglecting in any way the origins of much of the music in Spain. This is of course not a new topic—anyone familiar with the Baroque period in any country can easily see the interaction of musical types among religious and popular festal events—dances work their way into religious music, sacred melodies are infused with secular verse and vice versa, and the often confusing songs of indeterminate origin where it is impossible to know if a paean to the love of a woman is to the Virgin Mary or to one’s sweetheart—and many times the confusion is intentional!

But aside from these common concerns of musicologists and listeners alike, we have ample demonstration of the expertise and skill found in the composers on both sides of the Atlantic. And the lives of these men prove as colorful as the music. Take Jose Martin, for example, an extraordinarily talented man who most likely murdered someone while posted as a singer in the Royal chapel, fled to Rome, was ordained a priest(!), came back to Spain, was imprisoned, tried to escape to the New World but was thwarted by shipwreck, and ended up dying at the age of 80 with a fine reputation as a musician. Could such a man even be compared to the incomparable English songster John Dowland? Yet his songs are every bit as descriptive and melodious.

There are songs, guitar pieces, harpsichord works, and combinations of these and more, including percussion and various winds like recorder, shawm, and pipe. The dances that pervade so much of this album are indeed infectious, as one might expect from a recital of Spanish music (where so many of the commonly held baroque dances had their beginnings). Yet the airs have sweet melancholies that more than show the two-sided nature and variety of the music from the churchly and city realms of life in the 17th century.

Musica Ficta (Jairo Serrano, tenor and percussion; Julian Navarro, baroque guitar, vihuela de mano; Carlos Serrano, recorder, shawm, pipe and tabor; Elisabeth Wright, harpsichord) has given us an elegantly ordered recital with a taste of just about everything, and it leaves me hankering for more. The 5.1 SACD sound is recorded at a fairly high level and is somewhat close, but a few adjustments negate this issue. Otherwise the sonic spread is excellent, vivid and clean as are most Arts recordings, and the notes are detailed and readable, with texts and translations. This is a first class production all around, one of the best I have heard this year, and unless you are averse to music from this period, acquisition of this recording takes on some urgency.

— Steven Ritter

 

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