Album review: The King's Consort/ Robert King, Monteverdi: Heaven And Earth (Vivat)

Originally recorded in 2002 for a private client, this album of Monteverdi's love songs is peerlessly performed and faultlessly recorded. It opens with the “Toccata” from Orfeo, a triumphal fanfare, before vocal works explore Monteverdi's innovations - his use of dissonance to evoke the pains of love, and devising of the descending ground-bass figure underscoring the soprano of “Lamento Della Ninfa”, Carolyn Sampson's lead punctuated by male voices. Sampson is clear over waves of harpsichord, strings and horns in “Dal Mio Permesso”, while the interplay of tenors Charles Daniels and James Gilchrist in “Zefiro Torna” is a playful pairing of noble timbres.

Download: Ritornello & Dal Mio Permesso; Zefiro Torna; Lamento Della Ninfa