Originally released in Britain in 1976 -- although there's no indication anywhere on the packaging of that fact -- this collection of instrumental dances was top-notch for its time and is still a lot of fun to listen to. What's more, there's only a small subset of the historical performance movement that has taken up
Praetorius and the other composers of dance music of his time. Despite the title of the album, much more is represented than just
Praetorius and his Terpsichore collection. Three of the five sets of dances recorded here remain little known: the Orchesographie of Thoinot Arbeaj (1589), the Dances from the School of Gregorio Lambranzi (ca. 1640, with genres that still remain all but unexplored), and least of all the German and Polish Dances of 1601 by Christoph Demantius, some of which have rather exotic tonal content. The
Praetorius Consort under leader
Christopher Ball plays the music with what is known as a broken consort: a small group of timbrally dissimilar instruments, which the performers vary at will. Recorders usually dominate the melody lines, but there's a delightful menagerie of low instruments that includes such novelties as a bass cornamuse and the appropriately named great-bass rackett. Despite the fact that all the music consists of dances that generally resemble each other, the music shifts kaleidoscopically and reveals the different styles and national inflections. It's great fun. The remastering, assisted by original musician
Paul Arden Taylor, is another strong point. Highly recommended for anything from a Renaissance theme party to a serious examination of dance music in the early 17th century.