As Eduardo López Banzo, director of Al Ayre Español, points out in the booklet-notes to their most recent recording, the cathedral music of 17th-century Spain for the most part remains untouched in dusty archives. If anyone might say it should stay there, then this CD shows that that would be an erroneous assumption. Dusted down and scored up for the vocal and instrumental forces of Al Ayre Español, these works, with their mix of Spanish and Italianate features, are well worth hearing. There is a whole repertory of polychoral music out there that is both impressive and effective in performance, as for example Patiño’s motet In devotione, a sonorous and well put-together piece; his Maria mater dei presents a string of affective suspensions. Similarly high quality is Durón’s setting of the Lamentations which combines progressive elements from theatre music (and it is given a very theatrical performance here!), madrigalian effects as well as wonderfully expressive counterpoint. These Latin works are set alongside villancicos in the vernacular in the lively idiom now more familiar from Al Ayre Español’s previous recordings. These are interpreted with tremendous energy, and if this sometimes results in a sense of headlong, even precipitous, rushing, there is utter conviction behind such choices of tempi. String arrangements of organ pieces by Cabanilles work very well by way of contrast and in their own right. The whole is enhanced by the rich sound achieved by Harmonia Mundi in the new Auditorio in Zaragoza, though the foregrounding of the various plucked continuo instruments results in a somewhat artificial (if very attractive) balance. Another superb achievement for Al Ayre Español.