What better way to wile away a winter’s hour than to feast on the music of spring? Even if one might sometimes wish for less warmth, more fire, in this program of Italian Baroque monodies, ground basses and chamber music, the proof is in the pudding. And what fine fare it is.
This is a Mass in B minor where chamber-like sonorities go together with dramatic gestures as elegant as they are powerful, and where the instrumental and vocal soloists alike are allowed a high degree of latitude in expressing their individuality within the context of a highly disciplined vision of a highly variegated work.
Here as throughout, soprano Frances Cooper proves the most able and beguiling of interpreters, her diction crystal-clear, her voice sweet and steady, her expression attuned to the subtlest affective potential of both music and the poetry.