Hespèrion XXI has already explored the folia in a recent recording (Alia Vox‚ 6/99) and here the group again recreate the improvisatory world of instrumental music of the 16th and 17th centuries. Repeated bass or harmonic patterns – the basso ostinato – are again the linking factor while each composer from Ortiz to Purcell displays amazing skill at combining the restriction of harmonic repetition with freedom of inventiveness‚ discipline stimulating creativity with brilliant result. The same is true of this recording: the players’ disciplined virtuosity brings out the improvisatory background of much of this music in a dazzling display that enthralls the listener. Despite the constant of the ostinato‚ the variety in texture and instrumental colour in the pieces selected is such that there is never a dull moment: Jordi Savall on viols ranging from bass to treble is completely at one with the music of Diego Ortiz – never have I heard it more convincingly performed – while the violin playing of Manfredo Kraemer and Pablo Valetti in the later trio sonata­based pieces is full of rhythmic vitality and interest. The continuo team‚ mostly plucked strings in the earlier repertory and keyboard (harpsichord or organ) with theorbo in the later works‚ is superb: inventive and as virtuoso as the soloists they accompany. As the Portuguese musicologist Ruy Vieira Nery says in his commendably lucid insert­notes‚ these written­out and elaborated versions of improvisatory techniques are in many ways parallel to the best recordings of jazz‚ capturing for posterity an inspiration of the moment. Hespèrion XXI present their own improvisation on the sequence of chords known as the ‘Canarios’‚ a popular ground bass throughout the period‚ particularly in the Spanish­speaking world‚ and which builds in excitement and tension very nicely. I’ll enjoy listening to this disc at regular intervals‚ and I’m sure you will too.