Hildegard of Bingen is now by a massive margin the most often-recorded composer from the years before Byrd and Monteverdi in the late 16th century. From the time of the famous Gothic Voices recording 40 years ago (Hyperion, 7/82), all kinds of versions of her music have poured from the recording companies. But few can have the distinctive qualities of Grace Davidson’s issue: absolute purity of a single voice, perfectly modulated in all its details and gliding effortlessly through the often tortuously difficult music.

Normally this is the kind of thing calculated to delight me: no frills, no attempt to jolly the music up, no concessions to listeners who need more variety, complete confidence in the power of the music to communicate. Besides, she makes no pretensions at scholarship and original research: she unashamedly uses the (excellent) editions done by Christopher Page for that original release, and explicitly credits it to him (which, as some readers perhaps know, is very rare in recordings of early music, for various reasons to do with copyright law).

But somehow this is too unchanging even for me. To my ear each work sounds the same, at the same tempo with the same voice-colour and with no piece betraying a sense of having a beginning, a middle and an ending, let alone that any piece is different from any of the others. I am sure many listeners will find I am expecting the wrong things here, expecting a piece of sacred chant to have the pressure-points of a Bruckner symphony. They will also rightly point to the sheer virtuosity by which Davidson maintains absolute control throughout. But turning from the first piece, the glorious Columba aspexit, to Emma Kirkby’s excited and ecstatic performance on the original Gothic Voices recording reminded me of what I was missing here.