Musical families are a well-known phenomenon and indeed musical parents often set out in the hope of producing musical children with the appropriate talents to form a recognised musical ensemble. In practice it does not always work out like that. (Think of the Lloyd Webbers—Dad was a church organist, Julian a professional cellist, and Andrew—well we all know about him). As they explain in their notes, the Zapico brothers all play instruments which have substantial solo repertoires and conveniently form part of a 17th century continuo group but none of them plays a primarily melodic instrument. However it is possible to arrange music for almost any combination with a bit of skill and imagination and this is what the Zapico Brothers have done with considerable success. They are helped in this by the fact that much baroque instrumental music was not really conceived in terms of specific instruments and that it was perfectly acceptable to transfer it from one medium to another.
The three instruments blend perfectly together and create some really thrilling sounds. Not surprisingly with two pluckers in the family, Sanz with five pieces and Santiago de Murcia with three have starring rôles and Corbetta gets a look-in with a prelude from his Varii Scherzi of 1648; the Italian lute repertoire is represented by Kapsberger and Castaldi.
The rest of the pieces have been selected mainly from the Spanish and Italian keyboard repertoire. All the sources are meticulously listed on the CD sleeve but there is no information about who is actually taking part in each track. Some of the tracks feature individual members of the group and they are joined in some of the livelier pieces by David Mayoral playing divers percussion instruments.
All display an almost overwhelming virtuosity and it was clear that a good time was had by all taking part. I particularly liked the less familiar pieces including a Partite by Vitali originally for violin, the ‘Obra de 8º tono’ alto by Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia, and ‘Cecchina e florida’ from Castaldi’s Capricci of 1622 in which the organ combined with plucked instrument creates some unusual tone colours. The disc comes to a rousing finish with the anonymous Fandango de Leitariegos; as we know Anon has all the best tunes.
Overall an enjoyable selection of music in beguiling arrangements.

Monica Hall