Una tonadilla nueva ! - Baroque Music from Ecuador

Blasco, Manuel, Hidalgo, Gutierre Fernandez, Hortuno, Joseph, Pillajo, Gonzalo

Ensemble Villancico, Pontvik, Peter

CPO 777 568-2

»It is certainly not an everyday event to encounter music from the seventeenth century that never before has been heard by our contemporary ears« – as Peter Pontvik, the artistic director of the Swedish Ensemble Villancico, states. On a research trip through Ecuador in 2006 two local musicologists helped him to obtain access to scores of sacred polyphonic vocal music from the collection in the Codex Ibarra. He transcribed parts of the contents, and this unique music is now finally being released, for the first time in the modern age, in recorded form on the present CD. Only a few of the names of the composers – among them, Manuel Blasco and Joseph Hortuño – have been transmitted to us; most of the works are of anonymous authorship. Viewed stylistically, the spectrum ranges from the anonymous Oygan que da with the sound of Renaissance music to Hortuño's baroque Vamos todos a ver. The repertoire selection on this CD also contains popular villancicos, simple and enchanting melodies finely reflecting Ecuador's diverse ethnic makeup. This release in every way represents a refreshing and enriching contribution to the previously recorded repertoire of Latin American baroque music.

CD x 1

CPO

25.05.11

761203756827