An unexpected sound greets you at the very beginning of this CD: ‘Sound the trumpet’ as a duet not for two countertenors but for tenor and baritone, and with gently strummed accompaniment from a group of instruments which includes a gut-string virginal and a delicately sustaining ‘English theorbo’. Thus the tone is set for the rest of the disc, which not only makes use of similarly subtle and carefully chosen instrumental timbres but sees no problem in taking songs normally associated with female voices, such as ‘The Plaint’, ‘From rosie bow’rs’, ‘Sweeter than roses’ and ‘An Evening Hymn’, and allocating them to male singers. The thinking is sound enough; most of these songs appeared in the posthumously published collection Orpheus Britannicus and it is the domestic atmosphere in which many of them would have become known then, rather than a memory of their original theatrical or court contexts, that this disc seeks to celebrate. The idea is that of Scherzi Musicali’s director Nicolas Achten, who is not only the baritone in question but also the keyboard player and harpist, and the only person to appear on all 22 tracks. His sound is on the tenorish side of things, and both he and tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen have the kind of keen tonal focus and textual sympathy that can draw out the anguish in such numbers as ‘O Solitude!’ or ‘From rosie bow’rs’. English-speaking listeners will spot the accents straight away – and the singers disagree on how to pronounce the troublesome hybrid word ‘hautboy’ – but they in no way damage the sense of the music. Indeed, these are performances that prove that you don’t have to be one of Purcell’s compatriots to realise his genius with real heart and understanding.