Customer Reviews

Bolivian Baroque Vol 2: Music from the Missions and La Plata

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This is an absolutely terrific disc. I bought it after enjoying Volume 1 enormously, and if anything this is better. These discs aren't the most obvious thing to buy but I gave them a try because I love Florilegium's other recordings. I had a slight worry that they were a bit of a sort of politically correct recording of not very good music, but I was completely wrong. The music presented here is full of melody and harmonic richness and has a real depth to it. The vocal works are particularly good (I particularly like the Mass setting by G.B. Basani), and if I had been told that some of them were by Vivaldi or even Handel I would have believed it.

The performances are uniformly excellent. Florilegium and the excellent Bolivian singers treat this music seriously but don't overburden it with solemnity and they give it their all, playing and singing with terrific verve, lovely delicacy and genuine tenderness as appropriate. One would expect real excellence from virtuosi like Ashley Solomon and Kati Debretzeni, but all the musicians are superb and the four Bolivian soloists and the choir are fantastic. The disc is a joy from start to finish and with excellent notes, full texts and attractive presentation it's a really good package all round. Very warmly recommended.