Tessa Bonner, Emma Kirkby, Evelyn Tubb, Emily Van Evera, sopranos
Margaret Philpot, mezzo-soprano
Rogers Covey-Crump, Joseph Cornwell, Charles Daniels, Andrew King, Nigel Rogers, John Dudley, Peter Long, tenors
Stephen Charlesworth, baritone
Richard Savage, David Thomas, Richard Wistreich, Simon Grant, basses

Although there have been several rival versions since the original release of this recording of Monteverdi's sacred masterpiece, it still remains a strong recommendation indeed. Eschewing the pomp and grandeur of John Eliot Gardiner's later and popular alternative version, Andrew Parrott picks a smallish group of singers and players and homes in instead on the lyrical and intimate beauties of this music, of which there are many. He also adopts the quasi-liturgical approach of interspersing Monteverdi's various concerted numbers with appropriate chant, thereby adding tellingly to the devotional tenor of this performance. With distinguished baroque singers such as Emma Kirkby, Nigel Rogers, Rogers Covey-Crump and David Thomas in his vocal ensemble, the whole thing is brought off with memorable effectiveness and unfailing beauty of sound, no less in the choral psalm settings than in the ravishingly beautiful solo motets. The instrumental contributions, too, are of a high standard, drawn from a community of London-based players which in 1984 was just coming into its own. This is a recording which must rank as one of the happiest products of the English 1980s early-music scene. -- Lindsay Kemp