This particular selection of Italian baroque Christmas fare could become as familiar as mince pies and plum pudding, a comparison that is less frivolous than it might seem, until recently available also from the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan (DG 2542 123, 11/79—nla). Reviewing the Maksymiuk (HMV), NA found it to share the same characteristics of that other 'round table' Christmas fare—heaviness, excessive sweetness, and the common tendency to greet it with excess. I find this new collation little better. The weight does not stem from the number of players (3.3.2.1 plus organ) but from the heaviness of the attack and the opaque sound of the non-period implements, not helped by the bass-heavy recording. The constant vibrato provides the cloying sweetness and serves the occasional lugubrious sentimentality. Contrasts of dynamics, volume (ripieno versus concertino) and tempo are welcomely less than those in the comparative version, and the playing is on the whole clean and disciplined, but this is not the way this music should be heard in these (hopefully) more enlightened times.
If we are to have this particular stockingful, and it seems that we are, might not the Academy of ancient Music be better cast in the role of Father Christmas?'