This CD has an explicitly extra-musical agenda. Jordi Savall is joined by players from Afghanistan, Morocco, Israel and Greece in music from Muslim and Jewish Spain, Christian Europe (especially 13th-century Italy) and the former Muslim Empires in Turkey, North Africa and central Asia. The Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf hears in it “a sense of magical communion with reconciled humanity”, demonstrating that “the civilizations we had thought of as remote and even inimical to one another, are in fact surprisingly close, with an astonishing degree of mutual interdependence”.

Hespèrion XXI emphasises this interdependence, both in its choice of pieces and in their manner of performance. The works from Christian Europe tend to be less chromatically inflected than their Muslim counterparts; yet all the Mediterranean works display similar instrumental timbres and rhythmic patterns. Only a few of the central Asian works – such as the Persian Chahamezrab, with its freer, arabesque-like improvisations – seem to emerge from truly different musical worlds.

I do not feel qualified to judge the reliability of some of the reconstructions, but the CD certainly presents an evocative, colourful and convincing musical sequence. Hespèrion XXI have already explored some of these repertoires, and this probably adds to their natural conviction. Maalouf hears in this CD a plea for present-day openness and dialogue. Most potential listeners are probably convinced of the need for peace and tolerance in any case, but any evocation of eras of past tolerance is to be welcomed in this present time of conflict. URI GOLOMB