Carolyn Sampson - Henry Purcell: Victorious Love (2007) Hi-Res

The young English soprano Carolyn Sampson has been heard in ensemble recordings of music by Bach, Handel, and Monteverdi, among other mostly Baroque composers. In Purcell's songs, many drawn from otherwise forgotten theatrical productions, she has strong competition from Emma Kirkby, among other British stalwarts, but she stands up to them and more and she's on her way to becoming a major star. Her voice is not really large, but the occasional little explosions written into Purcell's scores show the power she keeps in reserve and her skill at working within chamber dimensions. She uses a plain, vibratoless tone just up to the edge, where you wonder what's coming next, and then slides into extremely agile decorations and ornaments, which would be mostly improvised in this repertory. Best of all is her dramatic sense for this music -- each track involves not just a melody but a theatrical character, and she is funny, flirtatious, passionate, humorous, and despondent in turn. The small continuo group, especially the unusually active harpsichord of Laurence Cummings, is notable for its sensitivity to Sampson's readings; this was no pickup group, or even historical-performance all-star group, but performers who obviously worked hard on creating unified interpretations. The BIS engineers can take home the triple crown for this disc. They bring the microphones up close and create an unresonant, chamber-theater sound that's right for Purcell (even if a church was the recording location), catching all the detail of the instrumental playing but none of the wheezing and instrument-scratching that bedevils so many recordings of this type. Anglophones will be able to understand every word Sampson sings, and perhaps the only complaint here is that the readers of the German and French booklet notes might also wish they had text translations as they're the only ones who might need the texts in the first place. An absolute delectation.