The eleventh-century abbey of La Sauve-Majeure, a small village outside Bordeaux, is unfortunately in ruins; but the village church, also of the eleventh century, is still standing, and provides the setting for this recording. The brass group are a combination of first-class players from London and from Bordeaux who enjoy playing together, and so, sensibly, do it quite often.
On one of those occasions this record was made. The sound is often brilliant; less often rich, probably because if there were any horn-players my ears could not detect their cohesive presence, and if there was a tuba player he must equally be guessed at, even in the Lully which listed him. But there are still plenty of good sounds on offer, especially in the two pieces by Richard Harvey, the conductor: these, together with the Gesualdo (quite different!) were my own favourites. And the instrumentation for the Purcell Funeral Music is of course exactly right.
Throughout the quality of recording is excellent. Beware the numbering of the pieces in the booklet: this is not the numbering of the tracks, which appears only on the box.'