The Queen's Delight: 17th Century English Ballads & Dances;

This attractive package comes with the sort of lustrous and vivid cover art reproductions Harmonia Mundi is known for, as well as a 69-page book of notes in four languages, complete with real binding. Musically, though, these studied historically correct performances are flat. They lack a sense of fun and daring. The dances are a bit pedestrian. And though there may be no way of positively historically verifying that these, mostly anonymous, 17th-century tunes were meant to elicit love, joy, and laughter, I'll put my money on the theory. --Gwendolyn Freed