¡ojalá!

With these songs from seventeenth-century Europe (Monteverdi and Purcell) and modern Latin America (Rodriguez, Jara, and others), two golden ages of song are juxtaposed on De Pasión Mortal . This is a vivid album that invites listeners into this wonderful, evocative music and to reflect on eternal human themes: love, loss, fear, ecstasy, and much more besides. Nicholas Mulroy, Elizabeth Kenny and Toby Carr offer performances of songs that are separated by time and space, but united by much else, and find expression in music full of beauty and unflinching truth. This pairing of old and new conveys a sense that, while the world turns and changes, people do not.

Firmly established as a national icon in Spain, due to her singing talent and recording career as well as her famed bloodline, Rosario took the time with her seventh album, Parte de Mí, to pay tribute to some of her greatest musical influences. Collaborating once again with producer Fernando Illán, a fruitful working relationship that goes all the way back to her debut album, De Ley (1992), Rosario handpicked 11 of her all-time favorite songs for Parte de Mí, an understated album on which contemporary pop flourishes are thankfully left alone.