When I last viewed the state of King Arthur in these columns (8/90), the only available comparison was John Eliot Gardiner's powerful recording on Erato; now the field has widened somewhat with reissues of earlier versions under Alfred Deller (Harmonia Mundi) and particularly Sir Anthony Lewis (Decca)—a man who may not have had access to all-gut stringing in 1959 but who certainly understood a thing or two about what makes Purcell tick and had an excellent line-up led by Elsie Morison. Briefly, the pitiful state of two years ago has given place to a rather strong field. None of these includes Dryden's spoken dialogue, but otherwise all are fine.
And so is Trevor Pinnock's new recording. He has an orchestra of glittering skill, often used with considerable delicacy; his continuo group includes, apart from Pinnock himself, Nigel North and Paula Chateauneuf sounding wonderfully persuasive on plucked instruments; his choir is tight and well balanced; and the recorded sound is clearer than on any of the other recordings.
His soloists are also good, all of them sometimes exceptionally so; but they rarely sound distinctive and all occasionally suffer from suspect tuning. Which is a way of saying that to my ear the new recording falls rather short of Gardiner's achievement—and that must be the main comparison, since the two versions have common aims and means. Moreover, Pinnock has a tendency (even more than Gardiner) to exaggerate speeds at both ends of the spectrum: if Gardiner lets ''Fairest isle'' go so slowly that it loses continuity, Pinnock has it slower still. Over the course of the entire work, this tends to impede the dramatic power. There is also an occasional loss of elegance: Gardiner and Pinnock choose roughly the same speed for the enormous Act 4 passacaglia, but I think most listeners will agree that by comparison Pinnock's is lumpy and lacks the poetry that the text seems to require.
Good, then, but for my taste not as good as Gardiner.'