Three years ago I reviewed Hesperion XXI’s very enjoyable anthology of early Latin American music (‘El Nuevo Mundo’ – Alia Vox, A/10), which included selections from the Codex ‘Trujillo del Perú’, a manuscript copied in Peru late in the 18th century. This recording is even more specialised, being drawn entirely from this one source; better still, it commits to disc its entire musical contents. Bishop Martinez Compañon of Trujillo seems to have been much broader-minded than some of his peers: far from decrying the popularity of this secular music (whose origins in indigenous dance had decidedly raunchy overtones) he copied it, apparently out of a wish to record the life and culture of his flock. The result is no less entertaining than Jordi Savall’s offering. The instrumental ensemble consists principally of bowed and plucked strings and percussion, with flutes occasionally thrown in for good measure. (Among the violinists, early music aficionados will recognise the name of Florian Deuter, a long-standing regular with Musica Antiqua Köln.) Though derived from dance genres, most of the pieces are vocal, and deal with courtship, fair or fleeting, in its various guises. Some consist simply of a melody with the simplest accompaniment but any similarity between pieces is offset by the infectious zest of the music-making on the part of all concerned. My only reservation is that the plucked violone can sound overly present. There’s a smile in store, too, at the beginning of the Tonada del Chimo. Forget Majorca: did Chopin and George Sand ever get as far as Peru?