Salsa Baroque is not one of the various fusions of salsa and classical music that have come on the market, but instead a new exploration of the African- and Amerind-influenced music of the Spanish colonial New World, this one from the Montreal historical-instrument group
Ensemble Caprice and its recorder player/director,
Matthias Maute. This is the territory covered by
Jordi Savall's
Folías Criollas and
Danzas y Villancicos Criollas albums, as well as various other releases by groups specializing in Iberian music;
Ensemble Caprice, though oriented toward the Baroque in general, has not up to now been part of this group. The results are mixed but worthwhile for those whose attention has been snared by this fascinating repertory. The best news is the inclusion of works by a composer,
Gaspar Fernandes, whom
Savall and his circle haven't much examined, although more than 250 of his pieces survive. There are also some instrumental pieces from the Spanish keyboard collection Flores de música; these are not directly related to the repertory at hand but fit well with it, and it's reasonable to suppose that music of this kind might have been sent to the New World. The two
Fernandes works included, one of them a cradle song, are in Nahuatl, and the anonymous hymn Hanacpachap cussicuinin, published in 1631 in Peru and presumably in Quechua, also reflects not just Native American influence but an effort to meet Native Americans musically on their own terms. There is a mixture of vocal and instrumental pieces, and some of the latter contain efforts to duplicate the effect of African polyrhythms.
Santiago de Murcia, whose vocal pieces have appeared on
Savall's recordings, is here represented by rhythmically tricky instrumental works, one in the instrumental-vocal genre known as Marizápalos (misspelled in two different ways in the booklet). These performances don't have the zip of
Savall's, with their active and improvising battery of percussion instruments. A bigger disadvantage is the absence of texts for the vocal works, either in the booklet or online; they are essential for an understanding of what might be called the sexual-sacred assault of the Spanish upon Native America. This recording does not have the riotous blasts of color that this music can deliver when really brought to life, but it aids in the ongoing exploration of a vital repertory.