Galindo's Sones de Mariachi is the clear winner here, an engagingly roisterous piece, orchestrated with raucous flair that would make a marvellous concert encore. The Mariachi group originates in Galindo's native state of Jalison and the exotic effect of players singing in high falsetto voices as well as stamping with their feet is ingeniously mimiced in the scoring. After this Halffter's neoclassical ''Festival Overture'' sounds a trifle bland, but Revueltas's two musical picture postcards of Janitzio (a tourist centre on an island in Lake Patzcuaro) and Cuauhnahuac (the Aztek name for Cuernavaca) return to the dazzling primary colours, and brash rhythms we expect from Mexican orchestral music. Janitzio even has a hint of irony in its genial extroversion, for the composer thought the resort over-rated. The Tres Cartas ( ''Three Letters'') of Jimenez though not without gaudy moments, are generally more impressionistically subtle in atmosphere although the Mexican folk element remains equally strong, with marimba and guitars included in the scoring.
The performances under Batiz have splendid gusto and the kind of natural feeling for the sun-drenched pictorialism that is the special province of a Mexican ensemble. The playing is sophisticated as well as exuberantly vigorous and the extremely vivid digital recording captures the wide dynamic contrasts without degenerating into noise, which is quite an achievement.'