This is a bit of a mixed bag to be honest, though none the less worth hearing for that. Domenico Scarlatti’s Salve regina (one of two) is dated 1757, and seems to be the only sacred piece he wrote after leaving Italy. It is also quite possibly the last of all his works. While his earlier church music shows few signs of the extraordinary personality that emerged in the keyboard sonatas, there are touches of it here for the observant, including one peculiarly stop-start section and much play on major-minor contrasts in the heartfelt and intimate treatment of “O clemens, o pia”. Hasse’s Salve regina, by contrast, is a rather more public affair. More modern in style than Scarlatti’s (despite its likely earlier date), it proclaims itself in virtually every bar as the work of an urbane and poised opera composer. Alessandro Scarlatti was fairly experienced in that field as well, with around 70 operas to his name, but since he also wrote more than 600 cantatas, we can presume him to have had a sound grasp of that genre as well. Of the three here, the pretty Infirmata, vulnerata and the delightful Christmas pastoral O di Betlemme altera poverta are, I think, the most interesting. Su le sponde del Tebro, though blessed with an invigorating trumpet obbligato, has a bitty design which recalls Stradella without really matching that earlier master’s level of invention.
Although both Deborah York and James Bowman are good choices for this repertoire, neither seems to be quite at their best on this occasion. Bowman’s unique vocal colouring is a haunting presence in the Scarlatti Salve regina, and his breath control here and in the long, serene phrases of Hasse’s piece is superb; but his intonation sometimes slips, and there are places where he is covered by the strings. Deborah York is on better form, but it would have been nice to hear this impressive young soprano bring more warmth to expressive passages, and indeed offer more variety of colouring in general. The string-band accompaniments are efficient but a little scrawny, and when even Crispian Steele-Perkins’s solo trumpet sounds subdued, this whole disc, while interesting to the curious, has in the end to be counted a surprisingly low-key one.'