Classical echoes, modern rhythms.

• Author: Barela, Margaret M.
• Position: Latin American music

Latin American music exhibits an amazing diversity--whether serious, popular, folk, or religious--yet still remains identifiable as Latin American. It cannot hide its distinctive accent, if not voice. In these five selections, an almost unnameable matrix manages to link music that crosses centuries, social situations, and settings.

What informs Latin American musical expression? Is the answer in the harmony, the rhythm, the timbres? Or is it a peculiar mix of these and other musical elements? Although answers appear elusive, they may be suggested in the questions themselves. In any case, listening to the following selections in light of these queries cannot help but enhance the listening experience.

Performed by Canto, an excellent early chamber music and vocal ensemble based in Colombia and led by Egberto Bermudez, Musica del Periodo Colonial en America Hispanica is a distinctive collection of sacred ("La Iglesia"), secular ("Plazas y Salones"), and folk music ("Indios y Negros") culled from the late 1500s to early 1700s.

There is no need to work at distinguishing stylistic differences between sacred and secular here. This is charmingly accomplished, and by simple means: Bells and horses' hoofsteps bring the listener to the church, while the small chamber organ's processional music extends an invitation to enter and hear Renaissance motets and secular pieces about sacred subjects. Performing sixteenth-century works from the Verapaz region of Guatemala, the ensemble sings in Mayan as well as Spanish.

Bells create a segue from church to the more casual atmosphere of the plaza and parlor, where bits of friendly conversations intersperse the pieces. Ballads and romances are sung by tenors and sopranos in solo or in three- to five-part textures accompanied by strummed or bowed strings and tambourine.

Introducing the Christmas folk music in the final section, a lovely and gently lilting five-part villancico, a kind of folksong, is accompanied by chamber organ and a text combining Quechua phrases with Spanish. Drums alone connect these pieces, perhaps the most rhythmically daring of the collection. In an air of celebration, distantly exploding fireworks serve to close the collection and bring listeners back to this century.

Anyone familiar with the Venezuelan crossover ensemble Gurrufio already knows the fabulous artistry and mesmerizing virtuosity of its founder, flutist Luis Julio Toro. What a happy result, then, is A Dos, his latest...