The music of The Netherlands after about 1600 has never been granted a great deal of recording space, even in these times when CD manufacturers cannot seem to put out enough early music. The Low Countries, while advanced in so many matters, were not a great centre of musical composition of course, but there was certainly plenty of music being made in the homes of Amsterdam and Antwerp, as the most meagre acquaintance with seventeenth-century Dutch painting reveals. So what were Vermeer’s demure ladies and de Hooch’s elegantly hatted gentlemen playing? Well, very possibly some of the highly civilized music on this disc: lute songs in which Dutch, French or Latin texts are adapted to existing melodies by foreigners (such as Dowland’s Lachrymae); conservative consort music from England (occasionally spiced up with a few unexpected harmonies); more up-to-date instrumental pieces from Italy; sacred songs for private devotion (again, often to pre-existing melodies); and some striking home-grown instrumental works, such as Eyck’s recorder solos or Nicholas A Kempis’s exciting Italianate ensemble sonatas. All were intended for amateur musicians and are appropriately tasteful without offering too many nasty surprises.