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Porpora Cantatas

Iestyn Davies & Arcangelo/Jonathan Cohen

Hyperion CDA67894

If any readers still have qualms about counter-tenors, this is the disc to convince and reassure them.

Iestyn Davies has a mellifluous voice and enviable freedom of delivery and these little known cantatas (six of a dozen) c.1730s are a pleasure to hear and certain to enjoy.

They are mostly set to conventional pastoral conceits by Metastasio, about fraught love and its delightful miseries...

The whole production is a model of how to introduce unfamiliar music of bygone times, with a detiled musicological backgound from Carlo Vitali and a cover picture from London's National Portrait Gallery of Frederic Prince of Wales, playing the cello at a Kew Gardens music party.

Jonathan Cohen leads an expert group, Arcangelo, and a leisurely three days of recording sessions in December last year has produced flawless recorded performances, best savoured one or two at a time.

Peter Grahae Woolf

See also Iestyn Davies in recital