Category: Recording

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Recording

Handel: Uncaged

Zazzo Handel Uncaged cover of the CD

Cantatas for Alto
Lawrence Zazzo cT, Jonathan Manson cello/gamba, Andrew Maginley theorbo/guitar, Guillermo Brachetta harpsichord
74:26
resonus Inventa INV1002

The curious title of the CD is inspired by one of the most unusual of the cantatas composed during Handel’s youthful Italian sojourn, Amore uccellatore. The work itself has an odd background. It consists of two short cantatas, Venne voglia (HWV 176) and Vendendo amore (HWV 175), both extant in autograph scores and part of the repertoire. However a further unique and un-attributed copy in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge includes a dozen more numbers continuing a narrative cast throughout in the first person. Handel scholars have until recently remained undecided about the authenticity of the continuation, but recent work now adds to the likelihood of his authorship. The result is the longest of all the solo cantatas (not, pace Lawrence Zazzo’s notes, all the cantatas), running to no fewer than 30 numbers alternating recitative and mostly very brief arias, some simple AB structures rather than da capo. The tragi-comic text is rather different to the Arcadian topics usually found in cantatas of this period, consisting as it does of the first person narrative of a bird as it tries to evade capture (and re-capture) by Cupid and five women. The metaphor is obvious, but the ending, in which the bird is finally left in peace after losing its tail (and thus its beauty), is not clear. The arias, a mixture of the light-hearted and serious, are necessarily contrasted for such a lengthy work. As Zazzo notes, it is unlikely that the cantata would have been given uninterrupted, so he has found short instrumental pieces and improvisations to serve as links, a formula that works well.

In addition to Amore uccellatore three other early alto cantatas are included: Udite il mio consiglio, HWV 172 (1707), originally for soprano, but here heard in the shortened alto version; Stanco di più soffrire, HWV 167a (1708); and Figli del mesto cor, HWV 112, chosen by Zazzo for their ability to form a satisfying group.

As is clear from the foregoing, it is evident that much thought and preparation have gone into the programme, so it is regrettable to have to report that the performances in general do not do it full justice. The principle problem is the excessively slow tempo at which most of the more reflective arias are taken, which coupled with Zazzo’s inability to bring texts to life results in interpretations that remain obstinately one-dimensional. This applies particularly to the three additional cantatas, which have pastoral texts conforming to the archetypal love concerns of shepherds and shepherdesses being resolved or unresolved, as the case may be. Zazzo seems to find more to interest him in the text of Amore uccellatore, particularly in the lighter arias, which he projects with greater intent and agreeable good humour. Yet vocally, too, I have heard him in better voice; the slow tempos contributing to both occasional insecurity and excessive vibrato, prevalent in sustained passages. Nonetheless there is always pleasure to be had from Zazzo’s pleasing timbre and ease of production. His support is technically unexceptionable, but there too I find little to convey the Italianate verve or lyricism inherent in the music of the young Handel. Ornamentation is fairly un-ambitious, with turns poorly articulated and no sign of such standard improvisatory devices as the messa di voce or trill. Otherwise on a musical level there is little here to complain of, but it is to be honest all a little worthy and ultimately uninspiring. The CD’s greatest value is its inclusion of the first complete recording of Amore uccellatore.

Brian Robins

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Recording

The Oboe in Dresden

Cover of Xenia Löffler's "The oboe in Dresden" CD

Xenia Loeffler [and friends]
78:00
Accent 24361

Just by the merest suggestion of any link to the superb Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the level of music-making seems already guaranteed. The marvellous array of chamber works gathered here by the co-founder of the famous Berlin ensemble are presented in such a way as to beguile and delight from start to finish! Not only is the amazingly dexterous, mellifluous oboe given full centre-stage exposure, but the excellent qualities of the top-draw instrumentalists follow in a trail of captivating musicianship. The opening Vivaldi (RV53) does that well-known slow-fast-slow-fast trick, but if the transition between these modes is truly faultless, the last two movements are quite stupendous! Next we come to an anonymous piece in B flat major, which uses a typical Telemann device of “Replique” responses in the two main instrumental voices, found in the Paris Quartets and elsewhere. The second movement seems to be a parody of a vocal line from one of his Harmonsicher Gottesdienst cantatas (TVWV1:447?) another quite typical device of hidden tunes used by him, equally prevalent in some of the Kleine Kammermusik of 1716. The Fasch work is a sprightly exposition of double oboes and virtuoso bassoon, perfectly written and performed to a treat. The links to Dresden’s fine orchestra become ever stronger moving through these excellent works. Next some known Telemann, one of his Sonatas Auf Concertenart, i. e., a neat blend of Trio and concerto styles; the soloists again display such an admirably vivacious interplay, one is swept along in their joyous wake. The final pieces show contrasting styles and varying instrumentation, the Platti is more conventional in layout, yet played with intimate skill, while the Hasse is truly a gem of a real master, the distinct timbres of the chalumeau, oboe and bassoon creating a glorious, warmly glowing sonority! The following anonymous Trio, possibly by Pisendel himself, leader of the Dresden Band. The violin part does seem to support this with its lively virtuosic interactions with the oboe, yet another high point on this remarkable recording which ends with a brilliant quartet by Stölzel for oboe, violin, horn and b.c.

What a superb selection of works, ideal for any concert, played with gusto, insight and consummate skill; as enthralling as gifted members of the Dresden orchestra itself, in a remarkable “pool of talents”. No little histories on the soloists’ past exploits or collective rewards are mentioned in the slim CD booklet, just a few lovely publicity shots; the whole CD concentrates purely on the music itself to such a rewarding extent! Top-draw!

David Bellinger

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Michael Haydn Collection

Cover of the boxed set of Michael Haydn

28 CDs in a cardboard box
Brilliant Classics 95885

Yes, you read the heading correctly – this set comprises 28 CDs of music by Michael Haydn! Best known for having a more famous brother, or (more flatteringly though “let’s not exaggerate”) the composer whom Mozart thought highly enough of to complete a set of duets for violin and viola, Michael Haydn really hasn’t had the best of press.

Now, at an amazing price of less than £2 per disc, you can totally immerse yourself in his soundworld. Unsurprisingly, this is NOT a Suzuki- or Koppmen-like methodical survey of the complete works; rather, it is a bringing together of various recordings from a number of companies (hänssler, oehms, and cpo, to name but a few) with period instrument performances alongside those by more “traditional” choirs and chamber orchestras; the opera is “modern” (with a HIP conductor to help), while the Singspiels are wholly HIP; two volumes of the complete string quintets (another overlapping interest with Mozart) feature extremely fine gut strung playing, while the quartets are played on steel. A modest booklet gives a biography of the composer and describes each of the discs; the card cover for each gives full information of the original recording.

As someone who has always enjoyed Haydn’s music (I remember the hairs on the back of my neck standing up the first time I heard a BIS recording of masses with oboe band!) I found the journey through these discs (some of which I had actually reviewed before) very enjoyable; his church music is especially attractive and it does not surprise me that it is found in archives across the German-speaking world. I did find myself tiring of amorphous non-HIP basslines and tiered dynamics, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the music, which in general is very high.

I recommend this to anyone into Classical music (in the strict sense) – I remember giving a concert in Dundee in 1991 in which we challenged the audience to identify which pieces we played and sung were by Mozart or not by Mozart; not a single person got the answer correct . If you played any of the present CDs as background music to a dinner party, I doubt anyone would be surprised to learn that it wasn’t Mozart too!

Brian Clark

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Recording

Music by Cipriano Rore

CD cover of Blue Heron da Rore madrigals recording

da Rore: I madrigali a cinque voce
Blue Heron
120:49 (2 CDs in a card folder)
Blue Heron BHCD 1009

de Rore: Missa “Vivat Felix Hercules”
Weser-Renaissance Bremen
69:47
cpo 777 989-2

Blue Heron’s recordings of music from the Peterhouse Partbooks resulted in five compact discs which received acclaim and prizes, including the first and so far only instance of the Gramophone Early Music Award being made to an American vocal ensemble. It was therefore with a great sense of anticipation that their next major project, Cipriano de Rore’s complete book of madrigals in five parts, 1542, has been awaited. Unsurprisingly they deliver in spades, both in performance and in presentation, with a booklet including erudite but readable and informative essays by Jessie Ann Owens and Scott Metcalfe. Rore comes over as a natural composer of madrigals, and Blue Heron have the versatility to do his music ample justice. Perhaps sensitive to prospective purchasers contemplating the prospect of up to twenty madrigals in identical scoring being sung off the reel, Blue Heron preface each madrigal with the original texts, the majority by Petrarch, being read by Alessandro Quarta; suffice to say he declaims them as effectively as Blue Heron subsequently sing them. Rore’s 1542 collection was famously innovative, with its intense engagement between the music and the words unprecedented in secular vocal music, and it set the standard, including the use of five vocal parts, for the more serious type of madrigal till the seventeenth century. Basically his madrigals are a fusion of the Franco-Flemish polyphonic style which, as we hear on Weser-Renaissance’s disc, he himself exploited in his sacred music, with the lighter, airier, Italian style. Whereas some such fusions simply refuse to “fuse” in the wrong hands, Rore’s collection exhibits a high standard throughout. This makes it very hard to single out individual works to recommend. Thanks to the versatility and sensitivity of Blue Heron’s singers, and to Scott Metcalfe – the most stylish conductor that I can remember seeing (in Cambridge, 2016) – every work receives detailed individual attention. A work such as Quel sempre acerbo et honorato giorno could pass superficially as a Franco-Flemish motet, while Perseguendomi Amor al luogo usato comes across as what posterity would come to regard as typically madrigalian.

Weser-Renaissance recording of de Rore's Mass - cover of the booklet

Weser-Renaissance’s disc is a different kettle of fish. Partly this reflects Rore’s own versatility as a composer. Although nothing quite beats the frisson of a live performance, one benefit of recordings is that one can listen to performances more than once and, if desired, do so soon after the first hearing, as many times as one wants. This certainly worked for me regarding Weser-Renaissance’s disc. At a first hearing I thought that the performances were inexpressive and stodgy, and the music, especially the Mass, turgid. Unwilling to sound off after a single unsatisfactory hearing, I listened again and the fog began to lift. Come a third helping I had reached my current state of admiration for both the singing and the music. The catalyst occurred during the second session with the electrifying music set to the words “miserere nobis” in Agnus I and II, and again to “dona nobis pacem” in Agnus III. Now I found myself able to listen in a different way, to hear the light and shade in the motets, and to appreciate further impressive passages of writing in Pater noster and especially Da pacem, Domine. In critical mode, I still feel that in the Gloria and Credo of his Mass, Rore is somewhat of a prisoner to his motto “Vivat felix Hercules secundus, dux Ferrariae quartus” which is treated as a Soggetto cavato during the Mass, in the manner of Josquin’s Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae. But overall it is a fine work, interspersed with several estimable motets, featuring imaginative scoring expressed through expert polyphony with judiciously placed sections of homophony. Weser-Renaissance perform it all sonorously ensuring clarity within Rore’s sumptuous textures.

Richard Turbet

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Clérambault: Chamber Music from the Brossard Collection

Booklet cover for The Bach Players' Clérambault CD

The Bach Players
58:49
Coviello Classics COV91928

This disc is a further exploration by the ensemble of Sébastien de Brossard’s library, their previous release having presented music by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre. Here, we are offered instrumental music by Clérambault, a useful counter-balance to the image of ‘cantata king’ that has developed around him. As with all Bach Players programmes, there is a strong impression that ‘someone has thought about it’. There are three trio sonatas, two solo sonatas (each prefaced by a keyboard prelude) and two chaconnes, also for solo violin and continuo. Further variety is embedded in the music of course: especially striking are those moments when the bass viol engages in the contrapuntal discourse, sometimes to spectacular effect!

I enjoyed the programme very much. There is an unfussy honesty and a unity of purpose about the playing which most emphatically is not a kind way of saying ‘a bit dull’. One hears so many ensembles in this repertoire with kaleidoscopic continuo sections, changes of instrumentation for repeats. etc., that it really is a welcome relief to hear classy performances with everything in place that just say ‘Here’s the music. Isn’t it terrific?’. Yes, it is. The booklet will not disappoint either.

David Hansell

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Destouches: Issé

Cover of the booklet for Destouche's Issé

Van Wanroij, Vidal, Dolié, [Santon-Jeffery, Lefebvre], Les Chantres du CMBV, Ensemble Les Surprises, L.-N. Bestion de Camboulas
120:34 (2 CDs in a card folder)
Ambronay AMY053

This charming pastorale héroique was one of 18th-century France’s greatest operatic hits. First performed in 1697, re-worked in 1708 and 1724 and still in the Versailles repertoire in 1773, it also enjoyed a sustained run in Paris from late 1733 into 1734. The music is lovely – dramatically engaging, melodically inventive and orchestrally colourful – and, even in this five-acts-and-a-prologue form, of manageable length.

I might have loved much of this in a theatre but the repeated listening that a recording gets raises some questions. The rather studious composed orchestral ornaments for e. g., the first section of the overture do sound less likely on each hearing; I doubt that the percussion was specified by the composer; and while theorboes are perfectly reasonable in French opera until about 1730 I’m not convinced by the guitar.

Moreover, the first two-and-a-half minutes raise the fundamental problem of so many performances, particularly of early opera, that one hears. The (brief) overture introduces us to one sound-world after which we are disturbed (not too strong a word) by a voice from another sonic universe – ironically singing about ‘une douceur profonde’. I really did wince. And I think others will also struggle with the un-reconstructed modern singing (including by the chorus) against much beautiful, gentle instrumental sound. But some might not.

The booklet (French & English) offers every help to those wishing to explore. The essay is concise but informative and there is a full libretto with parallel translation. I do wish, however, that the dull artist biographies offered a glimpse of the person behind the lists of prizes, roles and conductors-worked-with.

David Hansell

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Bach: The Toccatas BWV910-916

CD booklet cover for Bach: The toccatas

Mahan Esfahani harpsichord
76:53
hyperion CDA68244

The seven Toccatas BWV 910-916 are performance pieces sans pareil. They are exactly what you might have expect to hear if you had asked Johann Sebastian to try out a new harpsichord for you – sonorous chords to test the resonance and the stringing, fugal sections to prove the clarity of the voicing and the responsiveness of the action, episodes to test the two-part balance in lighter sections, sequential passages to gauge the temperament as you slide up and down the keyboard, shifting from key to key and slower sections to assess the chromatic and rhapsodic possibilities – they are all there.

This makes them ideal vehicles for Esfahani – and his harpsichord.  Esfahani is a harpsichordist rather than a period instrument player, and is a champion of the instrument’s possibilities in music old and new. On this recording – the microphones are set close enough to give us every nuance of the damping, and the final chords are frequently held very long as the instrument’s resonance is allowed to continue – Esfahani plays a 2018 instrument from the Prague workshop of the Finnish maker, Jukka Ollikka, ‘based on the theories and surviving examples of Michael Mieke with the hypothetical addition of an extra soundboard for the 16’ register and a cheek inspired by Pleyel 1912; the disposition is as follows: 16’ 8’ 8” 4’ with buff on the upper manual/soundboard from carbon fibre composite, EE to f3/length 2.8 metres.’

I quote this note from the booklet (p.5) in its entirety, as there is no photograph there of the instrument or any other information, and listeners must judge for themselves just what they make of it. It is certainly both powerful and technically faultless, like Esfahani’s playing. If you look up the maker on the internet, his website will direct you a Youtube recording of the flute sonatas where Esfahani talks about as well as plays his custom-made instrument.

His essay in the booklet discusses the many variant readings of the texts, as no autograph of the music has survived in Bach’s hand, and in the process reveals something of Esfahani’s spiritual journey. He sees the combination of the ‘earthy free sections of the toccatas with the highly abstract ‘divine’ truth of the fugues as a meeting point of human imperfection and godly perfection.’

His essay offers a well-argued and highly plausible usicological-theological reflection on the interrelationship between text and performance which deserves a wide exposure to critical debate.

I wholly recommend this disc not just for its well-argued and committed performances of these mysterious works, but also for the insights into the performer’s continuing dialogue between ‘authenticity’ and expression.

David Stancliffe

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Amadio Freddi: Vespers (1616)

CD booklet cover for Freddi Vespers

The Gonzaga Band, Jamie Savan
58:10
resonus RES10245
+ Castello, Donati, A & G Gabrieli, Grandi & Biagio Marini

This recording is another triumph for Jamie Savan and his Gonzaga Band. The research on Freddi and the way the performing edition for these elegant and tuneful movements – largely taken from Freddi’s Messa, vespro et compieta (Venice: Amadino 1616) – is excellently presented in five dense pages of informed and practical scholarship of a high order, which informs the whole enterprise. This is a model of how scholarship and performance should complement one another

We are given details of the sources, editions, instruments, pitch and temperament used. Particularly interesting is the use of a digital Hauptwerk organ running samples from the Nachini organ in S. Maria d’Alleito at Isola in Slovenia and played by Steven Devine. In a recording that itself is digitally created, I can see nothing wrong with using such an instrument, though I wonder what it feels like to sing or play next to it where there is no wind reservoir ‘breathing’ with you. The only other instruments alongside the six voices are Jamie Savan (cornetto) and Oliver Webber (violin), who play Freddi’s entwined and imitative writing in a way that not only imitates the florid vocal lines, but gives the impression of a very much larger instrumental ensemble. The richness of the overall texture created with such slender resources is one of the appealing things about this performance.

Just a violin and a cornetto with the organ was what Freddi had at his disposal when the forces at S. Antonio, Padua where he worked from 1592 to 1614, were reduced to keep the music establishment solvent. The combination appears again as the basic instrumental group hired in for the feast of the Assumption at S. Teonisto in Treviso, where he had moved in 1615, and is a combination that appears in places in the writing of Heinrich Schütz, for example.

The psalms Savan has chosen from the collection are those proper to a Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and as in the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers, he has interspersed the psalms with works for single voices, and a number of sonatas by Donati, Marini  and Castello together with some brief intonazioni by Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli and a motet by Grandi. This is welcome, as fascinating though it is to hear the Freddi works, the voice and instrument combinations are limited and the textures and idioms feel much more samey than the widely varied styles of Monteverdi’s work – but then Monteverdi was trying to display the maximum number of ways the plainsong could be treated, which was not part of Freddi’s game plan. After repeated listenings, I found the music tuneful but not essentially memorable, though some of the instrumental sonatas and the solo motet by Grandi raised the game.

As before with the Gonzaga Band, Fay Newton’s contributions steal the show. Hardly any other soprano has her wonderful voice: light, bright and flexible, yet capable of astonishing changes of colour and mood. This is not to say that the other voices are not excellent – they are equally well-matched. So this is another example of how to create a wonderful but largely unrecognised musical world, where voices and instruments combine to create big effects with minimal forces. In today’s financially squeezed circumstances there is much to lean and admire. Plus ça change.

David Stancliffe

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Polish Lute Music of the Renaissance

CD booklet cover of Polish lute music of the Renaissance

Joachim Held lute
59:00
hänssler classic CD HC19034

For this excellent CD of Polish renaissance lute music Joachim Held plays seven pieces by Albert Dlugoraj (1558-after 1618), eight by Diomedes Cato (1565-1628), nine by Jakub Polak (c.1545-1605), and seven anonymous pieces. The first track for each of the three named composers is a prelude, setting the mood for the dances and fantasias which follow. The dance pieces are quite short, ranging from a mere 31 seconds to 1’41”, but the fantasias are more substantial. Track 12 is a Fantasia by Diomedes from Besard’s Thesaurus Harmonicus (1603). It is a fine piece, and well sustained by Held, albeit skipping a low G (a6) just towards the end. Track 15 is an extraordinary fantasia, five minutes long, with interesting chromatic turns and a couple of bars towards the end which are reminiscent of Dowland’s Semper Dowland Semper Dolens. The piece was the first to be included in Robert Dowland’s anthology, Varietie of Lute Lessons (London, 1610). From the same source Held plays a fantasia by Polak (Track 31). Something seems to have gone wrong with the recording at bar 15, because some notes are missing.
 
All the anonymous pieces are from D-B Danzig 4022. The first, and at 6’08” the longest, is an interesting set of variations on Monycha [=Monica] aka Une Jeune Fillette, which Held takes at an appropriately unhurried speed. I am less happy with his leisurely speed and use of rolled chords for Track 20, the well-known dance from folio 20v of Danzig 4022, which I feel needs a more sprightly, foot-tapping interpretation.
 
Track 24 is a lively Volte by Polak, which has a clear 2-part texture (occasionally filled out to 3-part), with nice interplay between treble and bass. Held’s brisk tempo is ideal, and he has contrasting loud and soft for the first section. Surprisingly he omits the first note of bar 9, but he does include three chords missing from the source (Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s MS), which were inserted as bar 21 in Piotr Pozniak’s edition.
 
Most useful is a list of sources provided in the liner notes, so if you want to follow the score, or play the pieces yourself, you know where to look. I cannot find any information about the sort of lute Held plays for the present CD. There is an uncaptioned photo of an eight-course lute on page eight of the liner notes, but no information about it or its maker.
 
I have always liked Held’s playing. Unlike so many of today’s lutenists, he eschews excessive rubato, and actually plays in time. He must have heeded the advice from the Johannes Nauclerus lute book, which he quotes in his liner notes: “And you must observe the beat, if you will court fair Maidens.” I wish him luck with amorous activity.
 
Stewart McCoy

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Josquin: Missa Mater Patris | Bauldeweyn: Missa Da pacem

CD booklet cover for Josquin and Bauldeweyn

The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips
72:30
Gimell CDGIM 052
+Brumel Mater Patris, Plainchant Da pacem

There is so much that is fine about this recording, i.e. everything, that it is difficult to know where to begin. Best perhaps with the pieces themselves. The Missa Mater Patris by Josquin Des Pres – if indeed it be by him – is an astounding creation. Written in four parts, with a fifth added for the third Agnus Dei, it is unique among his masses in referring to a work by another composer, Antoine Brumel, who was seemingly only a decade younger than Josquin. Because it is unique among Josquin’s masses, both in provenance and in musical style, it is inevitable that the revisionist police come sniffing round, eager to remove it from Josquin’s canon. Scarcely less impressive, the Missa Da pacem survives with attributions to Mouton, Josquin and Bauldeweyn in early sources, and throughout the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries it was hailed as one of Josquin’s greatest compositions. Then in 1972, according to Peter Phillips’s cogent notes, Edgar Sparks established that it was the work of Noel Bauldeweyn, who flourished during Josquin’s lifetime. There is a commercial recording of four of his masses by the excruciatingly named but capable Beauty Farm, an ensemble based in Austria, on Fra Bernardo FB1709761, a double album.

What of the music itself? Mater Patris, the euphonious three-part motet by Brumel on which the Missa Mater Patris is based, is constructed largely of duets followed by short passages in all three parts. Josquin’s fuller punctuations tend to be homophonic, with harmonies and textures that glow gloriously, a quality that sets it apart from his earlier more polyphonic masses. Particularly memorable – one wants to say catchy but the context might be too serious – is his response to the word Hosanna and, while Brumel’s setting of the word “exaudi” lurks throughout the mass, here Josquin gives it full rein. Peter Phillips’s notes are excellent and, although I would take with a pinch of salt his suggestion that Josquin’s setting of Hosanna exhibits playfulness, it certainly shows a human side to this most technically assured of composers. While still showing maximum homage to Brumel, Josquin flexes his polyphonic muscles towards the end of the third Agnus in five parts, resulting in music emulated at the same point only by Palestrina and, particularly, Byrd. One corker of a dissonance at 4’05 left this listener breathless.

Missa Da pacem also in four parts, based on the plainchant “Da pacem, Domine”, is eminently fit to be mentioned in the same sentence as Josquin even though it has been established as a work of Bauldeweyn. Besides those fine passages (especially the fabulous third Agnus in six parts) mentioned in his notes by PP, the first Kyrie, Benedictus and first Agnus in particular present the work of a composer who, at his best, is comparable in stature to Josquin as, say, Alonso Lobo is to Victoria.

Recently I attended a concert by The Tallis Scholars under Peter Phillips at the Cadogan Hall in London, at which they performed Palestrina’s neglected but superb Missa Ave Maria a6, plus motets by Byrd (including his disorientatingly discordant six-part setting of O salutaris hostia described amusingly but accurately in the programme notes as “bonkers”), Handl, Morales and Palestrina again, with a neglected Magnificat by him to conclude. Their live singing was as good as I have ever heard it, and the same can be said about their recorded singing on this disc. They present the best possible case for these two masses, supported by outstanding sound engineering in which every part is equally audible and perfectly balanced.

Even after all this exhaustive advocacy I am still not sure that I have done this superlative disc adequate justice. Suffice to say, everything about it is the best.

Richard Turbet

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