12. Hespèrion XXILas Estrellas de los Cielos

I wanted to bring us up to a fairly recent point in time. This sounds like folk music mediated through a classical sensibility, but it feels quite ancient to me. I’m not sure what the provenance of the actual composition is, whether they are old folk pieces that have been reinterpreted or whether they’re new variations on an old theme. It’s just something that I heard relatively recently and it struck me as being something that manages to evoke a different time and place, which I’m always interested in. I find the playing really vivid and sensuous. I wish I could play an instrument half as well as these players. It would be rather wonderful.