The Latvian soprano has one of the loveliest voices of our time‚ smooth and rich and‚ at its centre‚ comparable in quality to Gheorghiu’s. I say this primarily on the basis of having heard her at the Wigmore Hall in 1999‚ and must confess to having previously been somewhat suspicious of her success on records. Whether this ‘special EP’‚ as it is called‚ would have soothed away those doubts is itself doubtful. Certainly it is meant to soothe: that is part of the trouble. A short­length sampler record of this kind might be a very good idea: a way of keeping a singer in the public mind‚ or of introducing her‚ or of extending what we know of her already. To some extent it does meet that last objective by enabling us to hear her in Bach. But one would think that a selection of four solos might be made so as to show different aspects of the composer’s art and the singer’s‚ whereas these (at least as performed here) are all remarkably alike. Moreover they are remarkably like the two other items in this short programme in that they move at an easy‚ even pace and work within an equable range of expression. The ‘Albinoni’‚ arranged as a vocalise‚ is of course the famous Adagio of which the current catalogue lists over 70 versions with the caveat ‘spurious – cmpd R Giazotto on orig fragment’. Caccini‚ whose alleged Ave Maria was another of this singer’s successes on records and which (I suspect) would be found on inspection to merit a similar caveat‚ is the other composer represented in this ‘ABC of Galante’. His Amarilli is sung quite beautifully‚ and the London Musici play‚ as in the Bach‚ with taste and skill. But no‚ this record would not have allayed my original misgivings. This has been a recording career too much aimed at the easy­listening market. Perhaps the announced ‘new’ Mozart Mass recorded in Prague will add something more substantial.