From the rich store of Renaissance music preserved in the Guatemalan town of San Miguel Acatán, tenor Jonatan Alvarado and lutenist Ariel Abramovich have assembled three ‘imaginary songbooks’, each focusing on a distinct type of polyphony: music for the liturgy, motets (some of which are actually chansons with sacred texts fitted to them) and secular songs. It is increasingly common for artists to adapt the extant repertoire for other forces that were known to have been in use. There can be no serious objection to this (Renaissance musicians did it all the time), especially in repertoire for which ‘straight’ recordings (that is, performances by the forces nearer those for which the music was actually set down) already exist, as is the case here – provided of course that the musical results are convincing.

Abramovich has a track record when it comes to this approach. In fact, the new project reminds me forcibly of his previous collaboration with John Potter for ECM, from his choice of partner and his own approach as a player to the recorded sound. Alvarado’s wonderfully clear-centred and focused tone excels in the longer movements, the motets by Escobar and Anchieta (such as the latter’s famous O bone Jesu) but above all the Spanish songs (¿Con qué la lavaré?), whose restrained pathos bring out the best in him. (It may seem an almost trivial point, but his sustained final notes consistently hold the listener’s attention to the very end.) My one gentle reservation is the one I’d had with the aforementioned Abramovich/Potter collaboration: from performers this good one could wish for more play with the tactus, more ornamentation from both parties, and a still greater response to the text from Alvarado (eg the jilted lover in Mulier quit ploras). But on its own terms it is beautifully done.