To draw most of the repertory for a recorder quartet disc from quintessential string music is a brave concept and one which encourages devotees of Purcell’s fantasias to rethink their natural reflexes. Gone are the usual tactile timbres of hair on string‚ or the panoply of articulation and colour contrasts which define the most successful viol consorts in this repertoire. Instead‚ there is a bucolic poignancy in the soft yearning sound of this most beguiling and flexible of recorder groups‚ bringing to these pieces a different set of expressive priorities. Whatever the principles of equality that exist in these devoted homages to ars perfecta‚ the Loeki Stardust boast fine treble playing (performers on each track are not listed) and the treble really is a primus inter pares in this repertoire. There is also a truly exceptional‚ innate sense of ensemble. Not all these condensed essays respond equally to the new medium‚ even when every effort is made to lift the elusive polyphony into the realm of metaphor – often through judicious transposition. Fantasia No 5 conveys a brooding melancholy in its brittle sonorities but urgency and tension (which form such a key part to these vignettes) can only be tantalisingly controlled within such a soft­textured palette. Fantasia No 11 is altogether more straightforward and one hears the best of the lyrical instincts of these fine players. The consort build up the famous C minor Fantasia with a deftly­marshalled evolution of ideas (despite some rather late­Baroque solecisms) and the mesmerising dissonances are fastidiously voiced. One could go on about what works and where the music is rather kept in limbo. Both in the Purcell four­parts‚ and the interleaving Mico and Jenkins works‚ one is struck by the innovative verve of this group. They do‚ almost‚ all they can to counter the inevitably tiring sound of four recorders in the most recherché of genres. Yet‚ judged against top viol recordings‚ the inner poetry of these masterpieces is ultimately too elusive in an instrumental medium which struggles to project the mercurial connection between notes‚ for which this harmonic language was conceived. Still‚ some edifying playing from a justly much admired ensemble.