This little Catalonian disc may be primarily aimed at devotees of organ music, but it contains an inventive program that aids in the ongoing illumination of Spanish early music and its restoration to the musical "mainstream." As the title suggests, the music is all based on "song and dance" -- on the dance bass lines and polyphonic songs, such as Crecquillon's Un gay berger, that became known across the European continent and provided the basis for a large proportion of the independent instrumental music that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The unusual wrinkles in Spain were that 1) such songs and dances permeated the repertoire for organ, a putatively sacred instrument, to a remarkable degree, and 2) that music of this kind persisted for quite a long time. The final work on the album, the Pas, en re major by the little-known Narcís Casanoves, is a fascinating transfer of a music that has the feel of a French court dance to the keyboard of an organ -- you're likely to find it quite unlike anything you've ever heard before, and to wonder how it could possibly have been used. The main body of the program mixes Catalonian composers with works by Cabezón and Cabanilles that have been heard before but never placed in this centuries-wide context. Organist
Josep M. Mas i Bonet has a deliberate style that tends to obscure the dance origins of the music, but the Baroque organ used, claimed to be the oldest in Catalonia, speaks in a variety of tones that will interest even listeners little acquainted with the organ. Booklet notes are brief but to the point, provided in Catalan, French, Spanish, and English. Recommended for collections of Iberian music or of organ music in general.