Recordings

The burgeoning examination of the musical heritage of colonial Mexico has revealed another fertile period of cross-cultural fusion, as Native Americans were trained in European styles. The bulk of this anthology of short pieces and readings relevant to the revelation of the Virgin of Guadalupe are early 17th century Spanish songs and Latin liturgical pieces by Guatemalan Indian Tomas Pascual. These are direct, attractive and skillfully constructed; but the kicker is the addition of pre-conquest wind and percussion instruments, playing rhythmic patterns cleverly derived from the 16th century “Cantares Mexicanos” codex. The product is a fresh, new-old kind of sound that seems on this evidence musicologically plausible. The singing and playing of the seven multi-talented members of the ensemble is bright, sweet and eloquently pointed.