This is a compilation that looks good on paper but works less well in performance. The idea of taking the Chapel Royal as the central point of reference allows works by the four leading English composers of their time to be brought together, but the interest of that exercise is offset by the preponderance of the minor key, the troubled mood and the slow tempo. The three anthems of Purcell that conclude the recital might almost be continuous, and the anthems by Locke and Humfrey are similar in kind. This makes it all the more desirable that the style of performance should be expressive. Whenever the tenor soloist, Andrew Carwood, sings, one sits up, because not only has he a good voice but he sounds as though he means what he is singing about; and this, I’m afraid, is the exception. The style is stodgy in other respects too: there is no necessity, for instance, for such a plodding equalization of syllables, as in the choir’s “fearfully and wonderfully made” or “and that my soul” in O Lord, Thou hast searched me out. At one point (“And be joyful” in Blessed is he) some rhythmic life emerges but that also is exceptional. It is good to hear the bass soloist in “the rising up and the going down” (to a bottom C), and the treble who sings the “O let me hear Thy loving kindness” duet in Hear me, O Lord deserves credit (and identification). The choral work is generally clean, and the accompaniments are tastefully played.
Printed presentation is hardly up to standard. Texts are wanted: we know that the language is our own but we want them all the same. The insert-notes cannot be relied on to give a biblical reference, so that we are driven to another company’s product to locate the source of Locke’s How doth the city. Having gone to that trouble, we see the text printed in full, and play their performance which is a great deal better (Hyperion, 9/91). Returning to the Nimbus notes, we find some entertaining quotations from Pepys and others, but also a number of dubious propositions. How doth the city is described as “a verse + anthem”, defined as “a variety of verse anthem in which the verses are always written for individual voices, rather than for solo voices”. Not in itself the clearest of propositions, this becomes more puzzling when up pipes the treble soloist with “What thing shall I say?”. It is also not quite clear why Locke is called “probably the most cantankerous of the four” and Blow is said to have been probably “a bit of silly old fart” (sic).'