I continue to be baffled by Astree's tardiness in releasing their recordings of Jordi Savall. This one is already six years old and shows its age by the flamboyance of its orchestration, no longer quite so much in fashion. Savall is known for his penchant for juxtaposing winds and strings and has here applied his imagination and knowledge of late sixteenth-century practices to a rare example of French consort music.
Under his direction, Hesperion XX play 23 of the 42 Du Caurroy fantasies, published posthumously in 1610. Du Caurroy was a surintendant and maitre de chapelle to Henry IV of France and would have composed these fantasies (many incorporating a cantus firmus—a scale, a chanson or a piece of plainchant) as background entertainment for ordinary court occasions such as religious services, meals, the levee or the couchee. Some of the orchestrations are lavish, using cornetts, recorders, sackbuts, viols, lutes, harp and dulcian while others employ one family of instruments or a combination such as cornetts and sackbuts. Although the recorder is often present it is rarely audible in mixtures of strings and winds, in combination with other recorders (No. 9) it shines. The pairing of sackbut with viols was practised by French church musicians and proves very effective (No. 6). The fantasy allocated to the plucked strings (No. 8) is equally successful. However, the finest moments are undoubtedly those in which Savall takes a principal part: in No. 25 his treble viol floats over the plucked strings most enchantingly, in No. 17 he leads a four-part viol consort with great style; and in No. 14 he is joined by two cornetts and two sackbuts in a fantasy based on the Ave maris stella.
Despite these elaborate contrasts of instrumental timbre, the music is essentially of a kind that remains a pleasantly contrapuntal, gently melancholic background. It is extremely well played and recorded, and will be of interest of students of the transition between Renaissance and baroque musical styles.'