Christopher Hogwood makes us realise that for all the constraints, this score isn't inherently small-scale and warrants all the subtlety of colour that can be achieved using 12 soloists and a decent-sized choir and orchestra. Needless to say, he conveys a consistent, logical and meticulous understanding of the score. The orchestral playing is crisp and transparent, the AAM's articulation allowing the integrity of the inner parts to be heard to the full without compromising blend. Among a distinguished line-up of singers, John Mark Ainsley gets the lion's share and is perhaps marginally more effective as the Indian Boy than as Fame, but such gloriously mellifluous and controlled singing can only enhance the reputation of this work.
Emma Kirkby is in fine fettle and she executes the justly celebrated 'I attempt from love's sickness' with her usual communicative panache.
Then comes the pleasurably contrasted voice of Catherine Bott: 'They tell us that your mighty powers' could not be in better hands. David Thomas as Envy, with his two followers in the Act-2 masque, highlights this brilliant scene as the work of a true connoisseur of the theatre. Mature Purcell is most strongly felt in the deftly ironic invocation by the conjurer, Ismeron, whose 'Ye twice 10,000 deities' is delivered authoritatively by Gerald Finley, though the lulling to sleep, before the God of Dream's gloomy non-prediction, is unconvincing. The quality of music shines very brightly in this reading, though the performance is perhaps a touch calculated in places. Recommended.