This attractively assembled programme features three particularly engaging examples of Handel's chamber vocal craft together with a trio sonata by Telemann and an Italian cantata by Vivaldi. Each of the vocal works includes one or more parts for obbligato instruments and, above all in the case of the Handel pieces, these are deployed with consummate skill in colouring textual detail. All three probably belong to Handel's Italian period during the first decade of the eighteenth century. Tra le fiamme (''Among the flames'') has parts for two treble recorders, two violins, viola da gamba and continuo. The text contains some vivid images, especially in the opening aria where a lover's heart, consumed with fire but deceived by a pretty face, is compared with moths attracted by the light of flames which, however, singe their wings. Handel enlivens this image with arresting instrumental trills in the second part of the aria. The remainder of the text expands the simile, drawing extensively on the legend of Daedalus and his son Icarus.
Nel dolce dell'oblio (''In sweet forgetfulness'') is more modestly scored for soprano, recorder and continuo. Its lighthearted text evokes the Arcadian idyll and its two arias have long been favourites among lovers of Handel's cantatas. Alpestre monte (''Alpine heights'') is a work of greater intensity. The bleak and hostile mountainous landscape is identified by a young lover with his own dark and desperate plight. Again, in the first of the two arias Handel effectively colours the landscape and the lover's predicament with striking modulations. Vivaldi's All'ombra di sospetto features a flute rather than recorder in its evocation of Arcadia; the work will be unfamiliar to many readers though a recording of it was available until recently on the Frequenz label. It is an appealing cantata with florid writing for both voice and instrument.
Julianne Baird is on particularly beguiling form throughout the programme, effortlessly finding the centre of her notes and conveying the youthful predicament which is the common factor in each of the cantatas. Occasionally I sensed a tightness in the voice in the uppermost notes of her range but otherwise found her interpretations alluring. Phrasing is carefully and consistently worked out and her articulation characteristically well defined. All that remains is the Telemann Trio Sonata in F major, a favourite among recorder players for its effective and technically comfortable writing. It belongs to one of the composer's most consistently rewarding sets, the Essercizii musici, published in about 1739. The instrumentalists of Philomel are unidentified by name, which should not be so on a disc with so many obbligatos. Recorder, viola da gamba, bassoon and harpsichord feature in the trio sonata and well played they are, too.
In short, a most attractive release. The voice is well captured in the recording balance, the accompanying instruments perhaps rather less so. But it is not a matter of grave consequence and the disc can be warmly commended.'