Inevitably the star of this record is John Sothcott, still perhaps most famous for his glittering performances as a recorded player in Musica Reservata, but here confining himself to stringed instruments. The two Italian dances are both works he has played many times on the recorded; and if his performances here on the vielle are less immaculate that is largely because the musical aims are now—so many years later—somewhat different. There is more give and take in the lines, more tendency towards a spirited folk-like style, though the playing clearly shows the understanding of the music gained through perhaps 40 years of performing it in various different ways. In the Lamento di Tristan he also achieves what seems to me something of a tour de force in plucking his own rhytmic background as he plays. Elsewhere on the record he astonishes by the sheer range of different sounds he can produce with stringed instruments.
Although St George's Canzona now include four singers, the basis of their performance is still instrumental. Since they know about much of the recent discussion surrounding the place of instruments in the surviving medieval music they have chosen their repertory with some care, concentrating in general on the pieces more likely to have had instrumental participation. It was surely not for that reason necessary to spread their choice of works over several centuries and several countries—something which works better in concert than on an LP—but the pieces themselves are mostly fine ones.
The instruments are also chosen with care, though it is hard to know how they justify the tenor recorder that appears in two pieces. There is some fine bagpipe playing from Michael Sargeant, expressive harp playing from john Grubb and a skilled performance on pipe-and-tabor by Michael Oxenham.
Among the singers, the alto Derek Harrison is perhaps the best at putting across the music, as he shows in Perrin d'Angicourt's Quant voi en la fin d'este. But the others are more than competent and work especially well as an ensemble in some of Alfonso el Sabio's Cantigas de Santa Maria.'