Classical: Jordi Savall/Hesperion XXI

Ostinato, Alia Vo

The playing on this disc is superb. So why only three stars? It's not because this programme of cross-continental music on a ground bass contains not one but two allusions to Greensleeves and Pachelbel's Canon. It's because Hesperion XXI are churning out baroque-lite like canned peaches these days and it's beginning to show. Yes, they do it very well, but how many complilations of charming snippets of the 17th century can one group do? Not many more, I suspect. There's more to Savall than Now That's What I Call Ostinato, but you'd never know it from this.