Record Review

When I first started to listen to this disc my heart sank; the first tracks, pieces from the Las Huelgas manuscript played on recorders with interjections from fiddle and percussion instruments, were engough to fill me with horror. However, this was before I realized the precise nature of the disc: this is not (thank godness) an attempt at reconstruction, nor does it purport to deliver any particular take on old performing practice. Rather, as an «interview» with Conrad Steinmann (amounting to a mission statement) in the booklet notes explains, it simply documents the late twentieth-century reaction - with all that entails - of four recorder players to a selection of pieces from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The programme itself is a varied one, from the sacred Las Huelgas pieces to songs and dances from the Cancionero de Palacio. The piece most suited to this ensemble is the set of Diferencias by Cabezon, and their performance is fairly straight; similarly the Morales motets, played somewhat faster than they would be sung, are, by comparision to the rest of the repertoire on the recording, relatively unornamented. Different pieces are approached in different ways: some of the Medieval pieces are deconstructed so that we hear the plainchant first, sometimes with an added fifth or octave; we almost invariavbla hear the faster-moving lines heavily ornamented, sometimes in «Moorish» style; sometimes fiddle and percussion instruments are added. Most interesting are sequences of pieces from the Cancionero; in each sequence at least one piece is repeated but is performed differently each time. So, for instance, «dolce amoroso» receives two performances, the first slow and stately, the second fast and accompanied by drumming. The second of three renditions of «enemiga soy, madre» is played very slowly; such tempo changes afford a very different musical perspective on the pieces concerned. And I was intrigued by the technique used for Encina's «amor con fortuna», in which the recorders sound very much like pan-pipes. There can, I think, be no doubt that the playing on this recording is excellent, and that the varied (if not always groundbreakingly inventive) «takes» on the pieces from different periods denote a lively collective imagination; these caracteristics must commend the recording, if perhaps not to the purist, then certainly to the recorder enthusiast.