Don't immediately start whining, "This isn't as good as Biber or Charpentier." The (re-recorded) highlights of the two previous CDs in the Baroque Music from Latin America series alone make this third part more than worthwhile: the anonymously passed down processional hymn Hanacpachap Cussicuinin and! Salga el torillo hosquillo! from Diego José de Salazar. In the latter piece, the whirling multi-grain
… is a wonderful depiction of a madman bull. Was it the Christmas child on the previous CD that managed to beat this bull, here it is the Mother of God - venerated as the Virgin of Guadalupe - who plants her foot on El Torillo's forehead. Most of this CD is dedicated to the most important South American composer of the seventeenth century, Juan de Arujo. His sunny music is a festive mixture of seventeenth-century baroque and lively folk rhythm. (HJ)more
