This is a very exciting disc indeed. We are hardly well-supplied with recordings of baroque music from Spain and Portugal, let alone South America. Chanticleer (whom I have not heard sing baroque repertoire before) have selected two of the most significant Mexican composers active in the first half of the eighteenth century and, in performances of outstanding quality, show that they are not merely pale imitations of their European counterparts, but have something original to say and the craftsmanship with which to say it.
The border between stile antico and stile moderno in Latin American countries is almost imperceptible, and the former continued to be an important aspect of the latter (so much so that in Brazil the practice continued for particularly solemn occasions while everyday music was in rococo style). Zumaya's Lamentationes, recorded here, show just how thorough was the contrapuntal training he received and what effective use he could make of it. The delightful Sol-fa de Pedro, on the other hand, is entirely lost to the baroque at its most chromatic. For this reason, I disagree with the assertion made by Craig H. Russell in his (excellent) notes that Zumaya's renaissance style was ''anachronistic''—it was, rather, another element of his style which could be called upon if required and when appropriate. At any rate, the stunning Celebren, publiquen shows what he could do with two choirs and just how far he could move away from that renaissance 'anachronism'.
Jerusalem was Italian rather than Mexican, but he spent the last 27 years of his life in Mexico City. The sonorous blocks of Jerusalem's music, which one might describe as rococo, are quite different from the contrapuntal edifices of Zumaya, though there is no doubting the baroqueness (''Bach rather than Mozart'', as Russell observes) of Esuriente terra Aegypti. Both composers are very well served indeed by this fine recording, which I unreservedly recommend as a breath of fresh air to anyone with the slightest interest in the baroque and just as much to those who consider the baroque of little interest—how strange it is that we continue to need these labels.'