Diaspora Sefardi

Montserrat Figueras

THE first thing that strikes you about this CD on the Alia Vox label is how glossy it is - a double album which says style all over it.

The second thing is that actually, Diaspora Sefardi could have been condensed into one CD without losing any of its impact.

You can't really blame the listener (me) for flagging long before the middle of the second CD, which is packed with haunting instrumental music.

That's not to say the recording is bad, but you're going to have to be a real devotee of mediaeval Jewish music to enjoy the full two hours.

I am the first to admit that I love the melancholy, minor tones, and these pieces make an interesting change from the more usual Russian music in the same genre.

Canto Montserrat Figueres has a simply beautiful voice, clear as a bell and ideally suited to the works. The opening "romances vocales" El moro de Antequera (The Moor of Antequera) is a highlight.

Each work has in brackets after it the area in which it was composed - Greece, Morocco, Turkey, Sarajevo, and Jerusalem.

Many of the songs and instrumental pieces have a particular Moorish quality to them. You can almost smell the souks and picture the minarets of some North African land.

The Jewish people spent much of the 15th-17th Centuries being expelled from country after country, starting with Spain in 1492. From here they travelled to North Africa, to the Ottoman empire, or to Portugal - where they were forced out in 1497.

The programme notes, which are published in no less than seven languages , tell us that right up to the 20th Century a large number of those Jews who originated from the Iberian peninsula and settled around the Med, retained Spanish as a language and preserved customs and practices .

The language and music of the Sephardic Jews did develop in exile and incorporated influences from their new home countries, and these are evident in many of the works.

An interesting collection, but if anything a bit too comprehensive.

Alia Vox AV9809 A+B