Andean Lagacy.

• Author: Holston, Mark

The entrancing folk music of the Andes region is much in vogue throughout the world today, thanks to the style's restful melodies and airy rhythms. This collection of recently recorded performances boasts fourteen tracks by a dozen ensembles, ranging from Chile's well-traveled Inti Illimani to Ecuador's Imbaya, a group led by flautist Jaime Vega. As album annotator Dale A. Olsen, a Florida State University professor and ethnomusicologist, points out, the timeless quality of Andean music is the unifying factor in the program.

"Instruments and voices," he writes, "rhythms and melodies--old and new--evoke the longing and passion, the color and charm, the history and pathos of the amalgam of the peoples and traditions who have forged it."

Although the form and instrumentation of music from the Andean highlands has remained virtually unchanged for centuries, today's interpreters are finding ways to...