It is perhaps ironic that the Inquisition should have helped to preserve and enrich the musical tradition of the Sephardic Jews. Inquisitorial records provide an important source of information on musical practice in the Jewish community that until the diaspora of 1492 resided in the Iberian peninsula. The conversos who remained in Spain regularly came under suspicion for singing their own songs - taken as evidence of reversion to their own faith - while those who were expelled fanned out through northern Africa, eastern Europe and the Middle East. Thus, although the Sephardic tradition had its roots in medieval Hispanic culture, it was subsequently open to and enriched by multiple and diverse musical influences.
Hesperion XXI's recreation of this repertory casts its net wide, drawing on material from late medieval Spain, but also adapting living ballad traditions in Greece and incorporating Balkan-Turkish elements. It is important to emphasise the creativity of the musical process at work here: the oral tradition of the Sephardic Jews is all but lost, and we know little enough about actual performance practice in previous centuries. No matter: the result is beautiful, exotic, fantastical and at times profoundly moving. Montserrat Figueras's distinctive voice seems ideally suited to the long-breathed, meandering melodies, punctuated by those sinuous, fluttering, Eastern-sounding ornaments at which she excels. And even if the mix of languages makes it impossible to follow the story-line without recourse to the booklet-notes, she conveys a strong narrative sense: try the extended ballad Por que llorax blanca nina or the strangely mesmeric lullaby Nani, nani. The instrumental accompaniment of plucked and bowed strings, recorders and percussion, comes across as genuinely improvisatory (although a good deal must surely have been worked out in advance), and this is also true of the purely instrumental creations on the second CD, some of which are simply called improvisations. The sonorities and textures shift and change, and I particularly like the way in which, in these pieces, instruments take turns to step into the limelight and then melt into the background.
Similarly, the way in which, on the first CD, Figueras's voice is shadowed by now one instrument and now another is effective, and again recalls non-Western techniques. The playing of the instrumentalists, drawn from both Western and Eastern traditions, is superb, and it all makes for compelling listening. Hesperion XXI enters the new century with a recording that will undoubtedly captivate listeners with an interest in world and early musics (and which will surely prove a favourite on BBC Radio 3's crossover programme Late Junction). Highly recommended.'