So many skills go into the making of such a record as this that it would be monstrous for the reviewer to come along and virtually dismiss it because of a single feature he happens not to like. The skills include the devising of an interesting programme, its connecting theme being Haydn's association with Great Britain. Then there is scholarship, involving the study of early editions, and its application in performance where, for example, Domenico Corri's sugestions for phrasing and ornamentation are followed in the canzonets, with quite surprising effect in the Pastoral (''My mother bids me bind my hair''). A fine fortepiano is used so that in the Arianna cantata the singer can be accompanied as the great Pacchierotti was, in London, by Haydn himself. The flute is a silver-keyed Drouet, the harp is exactly of the period of the songs, and the strings have similarly distinguished origins: all played with assured technical mastery and excellent musical taste. Catherine Bott, who has written the translation and notes, brings to the great classical cantata an imaginative dramatic sense as sure as the direct, unaffected style and convincing Scottish accent which are great assets in the folk-songs.
So what is the feature the reviewer happens not to like? Well, it is the habit that is becoming so pervasive among English singers now, of treating each separate note to a crescendo: a kind of squeeze, or bellows technique, which probably appeals to a musical nature because it invests a note with a life of its own, but which is destrutive of line and legato and which also becomes an extremely irritating mannerism once the ear has caught on to it. Catherine Bott employs the technique more or less throughout and the admirably clear recording renders it inescapable.'