This disc is quite a bit earlier than most of the other releases in Harmonia Mundi's Musique d'Abord series, which mostly repackages recordings of the 1980s and 1990s. This one is a bona fide survival from the early days of early music, featuring the king of the early countertenors,
Alfred Deller, accompanied in John Blow's duets by his son Mark. The recording dates from 1970, late in
Deller's legendary career, and there is a brittleness in his voice, especially apparent in the garlands of notes at the beginning of Blow's Ode on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell that is absent from his classic recordings of Dowland and the like, and from his own earlier recording of the Ode, dating from the 1950s. One sees why he wanted to record the piece again: the Stour Music Festival Chamber Orchestra could create a fine example of the warm tone and tight vibrato that was prized by Baroque audiences of the time, and more and more singers were attempting a more operatic countertenor sound. Nothing
Deller did was ever unmusical, and there are lovely passages in this recording (hear the duet work at "When Philomel begins her heav'nly lay" in the Ode). But the 1970 sound is rather close and harsh, and the performers, even in the slighter Marriage Ode and Cloe found Amyntas lying, do not seem really relaxed. Hardcore
Deller fans who have missed out on earlier reissues of the Blow performance will be pleased to find it easily available once again, but the casual buyer has other choices.