…Sopranos Emma Kirkby and Elin Manahan Thomas are excellent throughout…Harvey is a solid, dignified presence elsewhere as well, while tenor Charles Daniels and countertenor Michael Chance are at their eloquent best… Both The Purcell Quartet and Fretwork relish the variegated sonorities afforded by Buxtehude’s score, as well as the word painting, while blending with the voices to effect a homogenous yet multi-timbred sound of great beauty.

Fifteen years on from his earlier recording of Bach’s three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (on Harmonia Mundi, alongside Rinaldo Alessandrini), Paolo Pandolfo is now returning to this repertory with a thoroughly-rethought approach, the fruit of active and concentrated years of consideration, study and research into the inherent possibilities of his instrument. Given the basic differing natures of these two instruments, the performance of these works very often turns – in Pandolfo’s words – into a “musical argument”, rather than what is demanded by the music’s essential nature: a “musical conversation” in which the score achieves “transparency and eloquence”.

As for the Masses, Mozart kept to the traditional plan in six sections (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei), even when the inpression is that the sections are more numerous (as many as 21 in the "Orphanage" Mass), it is actually a matter of sub-sections, of varying number according to the requirements of the particular work, including famous and impressive settings of the 'Laudamus te' and 'Et incarnatus est'.

Couperin’s Trois Leçons de Ténèbres are amongst the small amount of the composer’s sacred music that was published during his lifetime. They are intensely personal, depicting the prophet Jeremiah’s bitter anguish in settings that are quite unique. Also included here are Couperin’s joyful motets Laetentur caeli and Venite, exsultemus Domino, and a remarkable Magnificat.

Fretwork here unveils some obscure but engaging works from the golden age of English consort music by the little-known but accomplished composers Martin Peerson and John Milton, father of the celebrated poet. The programme combines scholarship, performance and recording technology to bring to light some two-dozen forgotten works, from dancing almaines to brooding intricate fantasias.