Music for the Spanish Kings.

Music for the Spanish Kings. Jordi Savall, Hesperion XX. Virgin Veritas x2, 7243 5 61875 2.

This mid-priced Virgin double set presents music recorded by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX back in 1983, originally appearing, I believe, on two separate albums. The music is entirely from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from the reigns of Alphonoso, Ferdinand I, Charles V, and Philip II of Spain. The first disc includes numbers from various composers, Cornago, Pesaro, Toree, Gombert, Ortiz, and Nola among them. The second disc is devoted entirely to the music of Antonio de Cabezon.

As you would expect from this conductor and this band, the playing is exquisite, most always polished and refined as well as eventful and enterprising. They are aided by Virgin's truthful, lifelike sound, with its excellent balance, natural timbres, and spacious acoustic. The second disc is more somber, however, Cabezon a more melancholy fellow, perhaps.

The most obvious comparison I had on hand was a disc made at about the same time, 1980, in analogue, La Spagna, with Gregorio Paniagua and Atrium Musicae de Madrid (BIS CD-163). Of the two, and I hate to admit this, I preferred La Spagna for its closer, more glittering sonics, which tended to breath greater life into its tunes than the possibly more realistic audio on the Virgin recording. Ironic, no, that some music needs a little more juice not only from the orchestra but from the engineers to bring it to life? Nevertheless, Music for the Spanish Kings fares well sonically and interpretively and should bring joy to any early-music or Renaissance aficionado.