Just as Entr’actes and Sappho Fragments can now be heard as anticipating the style of Birtwistle’s first opera‚ Punch and Judy‚ so The Woman and the Hare (1999) shares its sound world with such close contemporaries as Pulse Shadows‚ The Last Supper and (near the end‚ in particular) with Birtwistle’s music for the 2002 Royal National Theatre production of The Bacchae. The composer’s genius for moving swiftly and imperceptibly between austerity and warmth is evident in both works‚ his characteristically fragmentary forms generating more than enough expressive continuity to ensure a powerful dramatic charge. This is equally true of the recent settings for soprano and cello of Lorine Niedecker‚ whose aphoristic poems about the threats and rituals of interactions between nature and humanity might have been written expressly for Birtwistle. The vocal compositions gain greatly from the assured direction of Martyn Brabbins and the effortless yet characterful singing of Claron McFadden. Birtwistle’s decision to divide David Harsent’s text for The Woman and the Hare between a narrator and a singer‚ coupled with some particularly graphic instrumental writing‚ makes this one of his most unambiguously theatrical concert pieces‚ and this account emphasises the claustrophobic aura of Harsent’s text‚ the speaker so closely recorded that her contribution could have been dubbed onto a pre­existent performance of the music. Whether it was or not‚ the cumulative impact of the whole is remarkable‚ with a visceral thrust that complements the more withdrawn lyricism of the Sappho Fragments and the Niedecker settings. The instrumental works‚ Duets for Storab and An Interrupted Endless Melody are performed with the Nash Ensemble’s special flair‚ and the sound‚ throughout‚ has admirable presence. Both compositions are already available on a valuable Deux­Elles release from the Galliard Ensemble (11/01)‚ but the two discs complement each other well enough to make both essential purchases. For the Birtwistle completist‚ Black Box have missed an opportunity by not including the seminal Monody for Corpus Christi (1959) alongside Entr’actes and Sappho Fragments (1962­64). This would have provided a more equal balance for the two much later vocal works included. Yet it is churlish to complain when the overall programme is as rewarding as this one.