Euskal Antiqua

   in Early Music Today (Dec, 2015)
Much of the satisfaction of this fabulous disc of early Basque music from Jordi Savall’s new Alia Vox Diversa label lies in its conceptual coherence. Enrike Solinis and his Euskal Barrokensemble present a fascinating survey of both what made Basque music distinct from that of its neighbours and of what connected it to the outside world.

Many of the tracks demonstrate how early Basque musicians absorbed the foreign; the orientally-inflected Koumis- Ezpatadantza, for example, melds a dance of Persian origin with a traditional Basque sword dance.

Elsewhere we hear the influence of the Jews expelled from Vitoria to Bayonne in 1492, whose synagogue melodies were incorporated into the Basque canon. On …