Tag: Vocal music

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Schütz: Geistliche Chor-Music 1648

Schütz Geistliche Chor-Music 1648

Ensemble Polyharmonique
57:20
Raumklang RK 3903

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Schütz’s Geistliche Chor-Music was produced in 1648, just as some semblance of order was restored to Germany at the end of the Thirty Years War. The 29 motets it contains are the summary of a work in progress, with more than a passing nod to the Italian examples in Schütz’s stated exploration of polyphonic writing, and with provision – not always necessary – for a basso continuo.

Listeners seeing Geistliche Chor-Music headlined and expecting the complete op. 11 will be disappointed. There are only 12 of the 29 numbers here, plus two works for duet combinations of voices (SWV 294 & 289) from Kleine geistliche Konzerte I and a trio (SWV 325) from Kleine geistliche Konzerte II, chosen to make the most of the ensemble’s line-up of SSATTB. Missing entirely is the final group of motets with larger combinations of parts, including instrumental lines, like the wonderful lament Auf dem Gebirge (SWV 396) for five trombones and two altos and the adaptation of Andrea Gabrieli’s Angelus ad pastores.

While this is understandable, it is a pity that the euphonious group Ensemble Polyharmonique should choose a selection from such a well-known and often-recorded work of Schütz to present their skills. The sopranos are a well-matched duo, even if not quite as clear of the inevitable tendency to colour their notes with modern vibrato as the steelier lower parts. The bass is a real basso, with a characteristically cavernous timbre and the middle parts well-suited for consort singing.

I quite like the sound, as well as admiring the skill and professionalism of the one-to-a-part ensemble. But after hearing the CD through a number of times, the performances were just a bit samey – I would have liked more tonal and expressive variety to justify a recording like this of part of a single opus, when there are many complete ones – like Rademann’s 2007 version in the complete Schütz project for Carus or Suzuki’s 1997 take using viols and with the Die Sieben Worte as a filler – continuing to claim attention.

David Stancliffe

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Machaut: The lion of nobility

Machaut sung by the Orlando Consort Hyperion

The Orlando Consort
60:57
hyperion
CDA68318

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Back in the twentieth century, another periodical sent me two discs to review. One was of Restoration church music performed by one of the most reputable – and, as it has proved, most durable – early music ensembles. I gave what I felt was a complacent, limp-wristed (albeit uncharacteristic) recording a scathing review, which was duly published. Unbeknown to me, the appalled record reviews editor responded by sending the disc to a more pliant reviewer, who duly obliged by providing a – not doubt sincerely – gushing review which was published in the following issue. Needless to say I never heard from that periodical again. This was disappointing because the other disc was a mesmerising performance by the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, of the Messe de Nostre Dame by Guillaume de Machaut, which I praised – sincerely – to the skies (Herald HAVPCD 312). Nor has another recording of Machaut have come my way until now. So which of those two recordings does this new one most resemble?

Thankfully the latter. The music is – of course – superb, emanating as it does from a mediaeval composer who can be named alongside Dunstable, Power, Dufay and Ockeghem, and who preceded all of them. However, for a recording which consists of pieces the majority of which last less than five minutes, the selection of material is crucial. This is accomplished well, with a mixture of motets, lais, ballades, rondeaux and virelais. Just as crucial is the programming. Machaut’s mass is for four voices, but all of these mainly secular works are in the thinner gruel of one, two or three parts, so monotony has to be avoided. And it is, with works for differing vocal resources (number of parts, or scoring) adjacent to one another for the most part; when two works for similar vocal resources are placed side by side – such as the intense virelai Moult sui de bonne heure nee beside the agitated ballade Ne pensez pas – the nature of the works themselves provide the variety. The disc includes the famous Ma fin est mon commencement but the fulcrum of the record is the juxtaposing of the substantial and striking lai En demantant et lamentant which runs for nearly eighteen minutes, with the driven, fretful ballade Mes esperis se combat which itself takes nearly seven minutes.

The performances are outstanding. Individual members of the Consort have voices sufficiently good to carry off the solo items, yet they blend well, while rendering each line and Machaut’s delightful rhythms clearly. For example, the way the two voices round off Moult sui de bonne heure nee is exquisite. And there are no obtrusive instruments! Anyone seeking a reliable introduction to Machaut’s music, or seeking to expand their knowledge of it, can be confident of ample rewards in this fine recording.

Richard Turbet

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Serenissima

CD cover of The 1750 Project Serenissima Music in Venice in 1726

A Musical Portrait of Venice around 1726
Perrine Devillers (soprano), The 1750 Project
76:13
Ramée RAM 1902
Music by Porpora, Giuseppe Sammartini, D. Scarlatti & Vivaldi

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Explanation for the unusual name of the ensemble comes in the opening lines of the notes, where its leader, oboist Benoît Laurent, tells us that the declared objective of The 1750 Project is an exploration of a chosen city’s musical life in the period 1720 to 1750. So here they have commenced by landing in Venice around 1726. This is a time chosen to mark a change of style moving toward the Rococo, a development that in Venice doubtless gained particular impetus from the arrival in the Adriatic city in 1726 of the Neapolitan Nicola Porpora. His Ariana e Teseo, given at the San Giovanni Grisostomo theatre in 1727, was the third of a sequence of operas composed for Venice. ‘Pietosa Ciel difendimi’ is typical of the composer’s gracious, mellifluous style, an expansive cantabile aria with an elaborate oboe obbligato part in which the character (Carilda) asks for relief from the doubts about love that afflict her. It is sung with affecting freshness and elegance of line by the young French soprano Perrine Devillers, who needs only to articulate both musical embellishments and the Italian language with more depth and acuteness to become a truly outstanding singer. Devillers also sings a Porpora chamber cantata with continuo accompaniment cast in the form of a pair of arias with a central recitative, in the latter of which some of the key phrases (‘Ahi! Lasso!’) do indeed hint that Devillers has more to bring out as to the dramatic side of her singing.

The principal representative of the home team is unsurprisingly Vivaldi, who gets the lion’s share of a programme that includes two of his chamber cantatas, an oboe concerto and one of the so-called ‘Manchester’  violin sonatas. Both cantatas, ‘All’omba di sospetta’, RV 687, which has an obbligato part for flute, and ‘Che giova il sospirar’, RV 679 are also extremely well sung, the latter in particular being a fine work with, unusually, accompaniment for strings. It opens with an extended recitative bemoaning the pain inflicted by ‘cruel Irene’ that again provides Devillers with the opportunity to suggest a dramatic side to her singing yet to be fully developed. The splendid aria that follows is inflected with chromatic pain, while the fiery final aria takes a more rhetorical approach.

Arguably the most complete performance on the CD is that of the Violin Sonata in A, RV 758, which is played with outstanding technique and beautifully nuanced tone by Jacek Kurzydlo. Cast in four movements, it opens with a siciliana Prelude, taken perhaps marginally too slowly for a largo, but shaped so beautifully and with such exquisite nuance as to silence criticism. The following Corrente, nimble and spry, benefits from outstanding intonation, while the Andante’s double stopping introduces that elusive, folky element we sometimes find in Vivaldi, perhaps a dance heard in a distant calle.

The remaining works are also excellently done, the Vivaldi ‘Oboe’ Concerto in D minor, being a transcription of the ninth of the op. 8 violin concertos (Il Cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione), while Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in E, K. 162 plays with the contrasts between a thoughtful Andante that leads into a bright Allegro, in so doing creating a near mirror image between the two halves of its binary structure. Finally, Giuseppe Sammartini’s Oboe Sonata in C not only gives Laurent a further opportunity to demonstrate his prowess but also offers another example of more forward-looking trends, the tentative hesitancy of its central Andante lento providing the sonata’s most characterful moments.

The disc as whole makes for an extremely agreeable and well-contrasted program. With its highly accomplished playing and singing, it is the kind of concert that would send you away more than well satisfied were you fortunate enough to encounter it live.

Brian Robins

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Recording

D’Astorga & Lalli: Cantatas · Sonatas

Les Abbagliati perform chamber music by D'Astorga and Lalli

Les Abbagliati
58:56
Ramée RAM1907
+G. Bononcini, Handel, Vivaldi

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The notes for this issue (by Ronan Kernoa, the cellist of the Belgian ensemble Les Abbagliata) open with a bizarre hypothetical account of an evening meeting in June 1731 of Bologna’s famous Accademia degli Invaghiti. Involved are Handel, the librettist Domenico Lalli and latter’s friend the Sicilian-born Baron d’Astorga (Gioacchino Cesare Rincòn), diplomat and composer. Given that Handel was in London in the summer of 1731 – he was involved with the revival of Acis and Galatea – that Lalli was at the time in the service of the Elector of Bavaria and that d’Astorga’s whereabouts at the time are unknown, the conceit seems rather pointlessly far-fetched, serving no purpose other than that of linking D’Astorga and Lalli to Handel.

Lalli and d’Astorga, exiled from Sicily in 1711, had met in Rome, thereafter pursuing flamboyant (and flamboyantly exaggerated) adventures across Italy and Spain. Whether or not Lalli was the author of the texts of the two cantatas by D’Astorga included here is unclear, though given their friendship it must be a reasonable supposition.  Both follow the format of alternation of aria and recitative while conforming to the expected pastoral take on topics relating to the vicissitudes of love. Neither strike me as especially memorable, rather confirming Burney’s view that the cantatas of D’Astorga that he’d encountered, ‘did not fulfil the expectations excited by his high character and the composition of his elegant and refined Stabat Mater’ (D’Astorga’s best-known work). Certainly they fail to match the melodic invention or charm of Bononcini’s ‘Sento dentro del petto’, the third cantata on the CD, which is occupied with happier aspects of love. All three cantatas come from a volume found in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. They are sung by Les Abbagliati’s soprano Soetkin Elbers with warmth and a winning freshness. However although it is evident she has taken care with the texts, Elbers’s Italian enunciation is not sufficiently clearly articulated to point them in the way a native Italian might have been expected to do. Her ornamentation is discreet to the point of reticence and embellishments are too often tentatively approached.

The instrumental works further the tenuous connections the CD is so keen to cultivate in that they are by composers that all set librettos of Lalli, though in the case of Handel’s four-movement Concerto a quattro in D minor there is a rival bid for authorship in the shape of Telemann (TWV 43/d3). Scored for flute, violin, cello and harpsichord, it’s an agreeable work with a spirited final Allegro that would steer me toward putting my money on Telemann. After an over-deliberate opening Adagio with heavily accentuated rhythms, the performance is fine. Indisputable Handel comes in the shape of his Trio Sonata in D minor (HWV 386b), a splendid work made memorable by its exquisitely lovely Largo (iii) based on an aria of Keiser’s. Again the opening Andante comes across as a little studied, but otherwise the performance is well-balanced and capably played, as are the briefer offerings by Vivaldi, Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti.

Brian Robins

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Leopold I: Il sagrifizio d’Abramo, Miserere

CD cover Leopold I oratorio

Weser-Renaissance, Manfred Cordes
76:00
cpo 555 113-2

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Leopold I inherited the imperial crown unexpectedly in 1654 on the death of his brother, having been groomed as the second son for a career in the church. He never fully adjusted to his imperial role, relying on a team of advisers and politicians to run the empire, intervening only occasionally when necessary. This had the advantage that while his contemporary Louis XIV (unfortunately labelled Louis IV in the English translation of the notes) engaged in a series of expensive and largely disastrous military adventures, Leopold consistently managed to stay out of these. Instead, Vienna flourished culturally, and Leopold engaged fully in its burgeoning musical life. His surviving compositions suggest a man with more than dilettante musical skills, and this is borne out by his oratorio Il Sagrifizio d’Abramo, remarkably his first attempt at the genre and generally pretty persuasive. In his own lifetime, as here, Leopold’s compositions would have benefited from being performed by the very finest singers and instrumentalists, and Weser-Renaissance give their customary very polished account of this music. His setting of the Miserere for four voices and strings is strikingly impassioned and extremely effective, all the more powerful for its pared-down textures. Weser-Renaissance recorded this CD at the end of their 2015/6 season exploring music composed by and associated with Leopold I, and there is an impressive authority about these performances which reflects the understanding they gained from this approach.

D. James Ross

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Beethoven Arranged

CD cover of Beethoven arrangements for tenor and chamber ensemble

Ilker Arcayürek tenor, Ludwig Chamber Players
71:09
cpo 555 355-2
12 Variations on a theme from Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, Septet op. 20, Adelaide, An die ferne Geliebte

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This CD features a performance on modern instruments of Beethoven’s famous and seminal Septet in tandem with modern arrangements for instruments and tenor voice by Andreas N Tarkmann and M Ucki of the Beethoven songs ‘Adelaide’ and the extended ‘An die ferne Geliebte’, and an octet arrangement of Beethoven’s homage to Handel – a set of variations for cello and piano of ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’ from his Judas Maccabaeus. The performance of the Septet is delightfully detailed, while the modern arrangements for chamber ensemble use the Septet as their model, and make very effective use of the available combinations of wind and stringed instruments. It is easy forget how ground-breaking and influential Beethoven’s Septet was when it first appeared in 1800, directly inspiring Schubert’s (in my opinion far superior) Octet and much of the larger-scale chamber music of the Romantic period. My favourite track on the CD is the Tarkmann arrangement of ‘An die ferne Geliebte’, possibly because it was the strongest composition to start with, but also I think because of the way the imaginative octet instrumentation enhances the original. Iker Arcayürek is a thoughtful and highly expressive solo tenor, who responds positively to being accompanied by a chamber ensemble rather than the customary piano. My one reservation is that in allocating the original piano part, the arrangements feel free to make demands on the modern instruments (particularly the clarinet) which would simply have been beyond the scope of the instruments of the period. Playing modern instruments, The Ludwig Players make light of this, but these remain obviously modern arrangements for modern instruments.

D. James Ross

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Ockeghem: Les Chansons

CD cover of Chansons by Ockeghem Cut Circle

Cut Circle, Jesse Rodin
133:40 (2 CDs in a hardbacked book, CD size)
Musique en Wallonie MEW1995

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It is always a joy to anticipate listening to music by Ockeghem, who was born at St Ghislain, near Mons, probably between 1410 and 1420, and died in 1497, probably at Tours.  This pleasure can, however, be tempered depending upon the quality and interpretation of the music. Not only do we as listeners have our own agendas for hearing music, but also performers have their agendas for performing it. For instance, it is possible for the listener to tolerate an indifferent performance which is nonetheless interpreted acceptably, while excellent musicians can have bees in their bonnets which result in performances which sound ghastly or just plain silly. Indeed, sometimes within one recording project, interpretations and performances can vary between the sublime and the ridiculous. So while there are few finer prospects than listening to the entire corpus of songs by Ockeghem, there remains the question of what the performances will actually sound like: will repeated hearings seem an attractive proposition, or will there be aspects of them that seem like continually running one’s tongue over a sore in the mouth?

First, what of the music itself? How could this be other than wonderful when it consists of all twenty surviving songs with secure attributions to Ockeghem? In fact, this double album consists of 24 songs, two other items being his arrangement for four voices of a song for trio by the (probably) Spanish composer Juan Cornago, and his arrangement in two parts of the famous O rosa bella nowadays attributed to the English composer John Bedyngham, plus Ockeghem’s lament for Binchois Mort tu as navre and Josquin’s lament for Ockeghem himself. Half the items can be heard sung by another American ensemble, Blue Heron, on Johannes Ockeghem: complete songs volume one (Blue Heron BHCD 1010), which I reviewed for EMR on 21 February 2020. The majority of the songs are rondeaux, many of the rest virelais. Although there is a prevailing tone of melancholy throughout the oeuvre, there are subtleties of emphasis, illustrated early in the collection by downright depression in Presque transi or passionate devotion in Ma maitresse, the mood punctured by the boisterous L’autre d’antan which takes its cue from references in the text to dancing. Then melancholy is restored by the agonised introspection of Ma bouche rit. And so it continues, the first disc concluding with the three-part version of the ululatory Je n’ay deuil, followed by the assertive Les desleaulx and finally Tant fuz, its introspective first stanza contrasting with a more animated second, reflecting the structure of the virelai. The second disc continues in a similar vein: melancholy or downbeat songs interspersed with others of a different disposition, all with the same variety of outlook, intensity of expression and musical magnetism. The disc begins with S’elle m’armera/petite camusette, another of the few songs in four parts, its text described in the excellent booklet (written by the conductor Jesse Rodin) as both silly and ridiculous but with its musical integrity intact thanks to Ockeghem’s versatility. Disc 1 includes Ockeghem’s arrangement for four voices of Juan Cormago’s cancion Qu’es mi vida, already mentioned, and the other arrangement mentioned above occurs on disc 2, an altus discantus added to Bedyngham’s discantus in his famous O rosa bella, a project which provoked one musicologist to ask petulantly why Ockeghem bothered! Listeners can also enjoy his rightly famous Fors seulement l’attente, placed before his own Fors seulement contre seemingly a riposte which takes over its tenor. In some cases it is the entire structure of a piece which creates the impression, such as the almost contorted canon which is Prenez sur moy while in others it is a detail such as the intriguing downward octave scale in the bass part of Ung aultre. Finally, the disc, and the entire double album, concludes with Mort tu as navre, Ockeghem’s sublime lament a4 for Binchois, a work impressive even by Ockeghem’s elevated standards.

Does the performance of these works match their musical standard? In insight, yes; in commitment, yes; in technical expertise, yes: listen, for example, to the fine singing low in her register by the soprano Sonja DuToit Tengblad in the riveting La despourveue. Nevertheless, the listener’s personal taste must come into play. On the minus side, the first word of the first track, Josquin’s lament for Ockeghem, is bellowed, and with plenty of alternative versions available, I shall not return to listen to this overly assertive interpretation again, albeit the reasoning for this clarion call is provided in the booklet, and might well meet with the approval of other listeners. In one or two songs such as S’elle m’armera some singers use knowingly affected portamento, which becomes irritating upon repeated hearings. On the plus side, every note in every song is democratically audible, and its relationship with every other note is clearly expressed, the harmony and the melody, in other words the vertical and the horizontal, musically comprehensible. Great care is taken in conveying the unique meaning of each song: listening to the songs can be like observing the interior workings of so many sophisticated timepieces; yet it is perfectly possible to listen to all these works simply for pleasure, for the sheer beauty of the music itself, and for the emotions they express. The singers use very open vowel sounds but apart from a small scattering of instances, this is not otherwise jarring. The fabric of Blue Heron’s performances is more finely spun, and they – very sparingly and tastefully – use instruments, so there is sufficient overall difference between the two sets to offer either choice, or the pleasure of possessing alternative perspectives on (for now) half of the pieces. As for Cut Circle, the intensity and intelligence of their performances won me over after a disastrous start, as subsequently did their audible – and infectious – enjoyment in performing these exquisite and enchanting songs. 

Richard Turbet

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Monteverdi: Il Terzo Libro de’ Madrigali

Concerto Italiano Monteverdi terzo libro

Concerto Italiano, Rinaldo Alessandrini
64:33
naïve OP 30580

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Monteverdi’s appointment to the court of Mantua in 1590 or 1591 brought to the young composer new opportunities, not the least of which was contact with the Mantuan maestro di cappella Giaches de Wert, one of the great madrigalists of the day, and two of the greatest poets active at of the end of the 16th century: Giovanni Guarini and Torquato Tasso, both occasional visitors to Mantua. Monteverdi’s arrival was also near- coincidental with the recent succession to the duchy of Vincenzo Gonzago, whose expansion of court musical activity included the establishment of a consort of singers modelled on the famous ‘concerto delle dame’ in the rival court at Ferrara.

Put all the above ingredients into the mixer and you arrive at Monteverdi’s third book of madrigals, Il terzo libro de’ madrigali, published in 1592. For Guarini, whose erotic poetry provided the bulk of Monteverdi’s settings in Book 3, and the taste for the sensual combination of high voices established at Ferrara it is necessary to look no further than the delicate tapestry of the first half of the opening madrigal, ‘La giovinetta pianta’, the luminescent texture employed in talking of ‘the tender young plant’ perhaps less potent than in more serious texts but sensuous none the less. All the madrigals in Book 3 are scored for five voices, still of course a cappella at this point in the composer’s development. One of the remarkable features is the manner in which Monteverdi consistently alternates contrasts of colour between high and low voices and texture between polyphony and homophony, nearly always to dramatic purpose. These characteristics are well illustrated in the final madrigal of the collection, the two-part ‘Rimanti in pace’, to a text by Livio Celiano, a pen name for Angelo Grillo. The declamatory poem is part direct speech and part narrative, the composer clearly differentiating the two by giving the parting Tirso’s departing words to his Fillida, ‘Stay and peace be with you’, given to upper voices, while those narrated are darker and more homophonic. The brief cycle comes to a shattering conclusion with the reiteration of Fillida’s unbearably poignant motif, ‘Deh, cara anima mia’ (Tell me, dear heart of mine … who takes you from me?).

Such settings mark a foretaste of the innate dramatic gifts that would eventually lead to Monteverdi becoming the first great opera composer. They are even more in evidence in a pair of three-part cycles in which the text is drawn from episodes in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, the first, ‘Vattene pur crudel’ describing the fury and then torment of Armida deserted by Rinaldo, the second the distress of the Christian knight Tancredi after he has killed the Saracen warrior-maiden Clorinda, a topic to which Monteverdi would return memorably in Book 8 almost fifty years later. The former, again a declamatory alternation of direct speech and narrative, the latter vividly descriptive at the point at the end of part 2, where Armida, faint from extreme emotion, lapses into unconsciousness as quiet dissonance takes over before the third part opens with a magical evocation of ‘nothing but empty silence all about her’ greets the reviving Armida.

The madrigal ensemble of Rinaldo Alessandrini’s Concerto Italiano has gone through several reincarnations since he first started recording Monteverdi’s madrigals. Indeed Alessandro reminds us in a booklet note that it is fifteen years since his last complete madrigal book recording (Book 6). The present ensemble is at least a match for any of its predecessors, with both individuality – the two leading sopranos, Francesca Cassinari and Monica Piccinini, have pleasingly differentiated voices – and an excellent blend that retains enough clarity to allow contrapuntal strands to stand out clearly. Diction and articulation, too, are excellent. Just once or twice I did wonder if Alessandrini was making a little too much of tempo contrasts (‘O primavera’ is an example), but such doubts are rapidly banished within the context of such exceptionally musical performances.

Brian Robins        

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Music is the Cure

La Ninfea's Musical Medicine Chest

Or La Ninfea’s Musical Medicine Chest
Minko Ludwig tenor, La Ninfea
67:10
Perfect Noise PN1904

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Music by Henry Purcell, Anthony Holborne, Giles Farnaby, Lully, Marais, Charpentier and Tobias Hume is linked here by traditional tunes and improvised divisions in a regular chemist’s shop of sickness and cures. La Ninfea have trawled far and wide through the music of the Renaissance and the early Baroque to find pieces with medical resonances and have come up with a pleasing programme on their theme, which includes some familiar and unfamiliar songs and instrumental music, ranging from the predictable Purcell glees to unanticipated dips into French Baroque opera. There is an engaging contemplative quality about their accounts here, particularly in the very free divisions, which almost take on the ambience of improvisatory jazz. The playing is generally very convincing, and the blend between the instruments and with the voice pleasant and persuasive. I like the way the improvisatory quality of the divisions seems to spill over and pervade all of the tracks. The dance movements have an involving swing to them, while the performers seem to enjoy exploring the textural potential of their instruments.

D. James Ross

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DVD

They that in ships unto the sea go down

Music for the Mayflower
Passamezzo
61:23
resonus RES10263

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This programme has been drawn together to mark the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower, and is based enterprisingly on music taken in part from music books thought to have been taken to America by the pilgrims and to have been used by them in the early days of the colonies. Perhaps predictably for a group of puritans, books of psalms feature heavily, and Henry Ainsworth’s 1612 Book of Psalmes Englished both in Prose and Metre and Richard Allison’s The Psalmes of David in Meter, the former recording just the psalm tunes by way of music, the latter featuring settings ‘for fowre voyces’, both provide material for the programme. Fortunately for the colonists (and for us), a third book, The golden garland of princely pleasures compiled by Richard Johnson provides slightly more racy secular material, in the form of lyrics and sonnets about England’s historical Queens and Kings. The balance of the programme is made up by carefully chosen songs from the period referencing sea travel and the colonial experience. The choice of material is intriguing and revelatory, and it is easy to imagine the pilgrim fathers gathered on deck in quieter moments during their epic voyage joining in song, or later taking a break from the arduous task of building their colonial towns with some communal singing. The singers and instrumentalists of Passamezzo steer a cautious line between ‘refined’ and ‘naïve’ performance style – I could only wish that they might have taken account of the considerable body of scholarship devoted to the pronunciation of 17th-century English, both in ‘old’ and New England. This is particularly noticeable in the contribution from actor Richard de Winter, which would surely have benefited from a nice 17th-century New England twang! Having said that, the singing is always pleasing, the scoring imaginative and plausible and the playing consistently sympathetic. This is a very enjoyable CD and a suitably evocative celebration of a seminal historical moment.

D. James Ross