Fifteenth-century song recitals are rare enough for this recording to be welcomed with open arms, particularly as a few of these are, if not first performances, then the first by performers of this calibre: thus, Caron’s lovely Rose playsante and Agricola’s J’ars de desir are standout performances, the former mellifluous, the latter as gutsy as its text suggests. I could have done with a few more of these newcomers; put another way, does one really need another recording of some of De tous biens plaine or D’ung aultre amer, beautiful as they are? I had remarked on the unusual programming of this album’s predecessor (9/21); that unresolved impression is more obtrusive here. Notwithstanding the fact that all these songs are in Florentine sources, the inclusion of the two motets by Dufay and other sacred works is puzzling, and the presence of plainchant (whatever the rationale) simply baffling.

But it is in the more frequently recorded pieces that one comes away frustrated. One cannot say too often how crucial it is to find the right tempo, and often they are just too slow to allow the singers to shape the lines persuasively: D’ung aultre amer and De tous biens plaine are among the notable casualties here. (An audible clue is when a breath is taken where a brisker tempo would have allowed a phrase to be sung straight through.) Another is Alma redemptoris mater, a jewel in Ockeghem’s crown, which fails utterly to shine. Overall, it’s fair to say that the ensemble are not on their best form. Just as conspicuous, the diction of the French texts lacks clarity (the vowel ‘a’ is often veiled, sitting too deep in the throat), and in one case a mispronunciation betrays a serious misunderstanding of the text. In Mon seul et cele souvenir, the fourth word is pronounced like ‘celle’ and translated as though it were. This makes no sense: although old French didn’t use diacritical accents, the correct word is ‘celé’ meaning ‘hidden’, and the resulting assonance with ‘seul et’, when pronounced correctly, is the whole point of the opening phrase, a classic gambit of the poetic style.