A number of contemporary composers have taken to writing for early instruments. George Benjamin’s Upon Silence enlisted Fretwork’s viols a decade ago. More recently‚ even Mark­Anthony Turnage has had a go. Sir John Tavener might seem likelier casting‚ but his idiom is now so attenuated‚ his music typically so still and subdued‚ that the distinctive timbre of the instruments has little chance to assert itself. Harmonia Mundi nevertheless presents first recordings of three such works. You can hear The Hidden Face performed in concert all over the UK this November. But‚ on disc at least‚ it serves as little more than sophisticated ambient noise. Production values are high‚ and the effect is certainly enhanced by the wonderfully vivid sonics and the sterling‚ above all patient work of the original soloists‚ Michael Chance and Nicholas Daniel. Not much happens in 18 minutes‚ but you might find the experience relaxing enough. The accompaniment was originally scored for the modern strings of the City of London Sinfonia. Apokatástasis‚ written expressly for Fretwork‚ has the advantage of extreme brevity; it again involves viols and countertenor‚ plus the distinctive contribution of Tibetan temple bowls‚ some clattery‚ others sounding like small gongs. It is an ecstatic outburst – decorative‚ atmospheric and literally pointless. Nothing becomes it so much as its (sympathetically miked) dying away. The goal­directed structures and exploratory processes of Western art music are more in evidence in Nipson‚ a work the BBC commissioned for the group‚ and for non­committed listeners this may be the place to start. Described by the composer as ‘an ikon of glory and repentance’‚ the piece is bookended by a haunting musical palindrome‚ mirroring a Byzantine (verbal) palindrome etched above a public fountain in Constantinople. There are six sections – the viols seeming to intone some long­lost liturgy‚ the chant­based countertenor line ranging far and wide in its melismatic pleading – and too many enervating gaps. Around the 14­minute mark one hits a sub­Psycho passage of transcendent silliness. These casually wrought Tavener pieces sit alongside authentic polyphony from his Tudor namesake‚ from the shadowy Picforth and from John Ward; the CD closes with a glorious non­sequitur – a new arrangement of Purcell’s An Evening Hymn. It’s all beautifully turned and a bit of a puzzle. Given that we still lack commercial recordings of scores like Tavener’s masterly Akhmatova: Requiem‚ should we really be welcoming more and more of the wispy‚ formulaic stuff he churns out these days‚ music his latterday apologists describe as ‘deceptively’ simple? The avant­garde composer whose cantata‚ The Whale‚ was so admired by The Beatles that they released it on their Apple label (6/93)‚ is fleetingly present even in Tavener’s post­Protecting Veil concert music‚ and yet the higher the man’s public profile‚ the lower his creative sights – as conventionally understood. Divinely inspired or not‚ this is thin gruel in designer packaging. Or so it seemed to me.