An auspicious solo recording debut for the Scottish soprano, Jeni Bern, whose attractive tone quality, purity of intonation, firm and ringing high register, technical command (all florid passages perfectly neat) and, not least, musicality are a sheer delight. She has the good fortune to be partnered here by the incomparable Crispian Steele-Perkins on an eighteenth-century English slide trumpet whose sweet tone contrasts with that of the more pungent instrument of today; and his clean-cut playing admirably complements her singing, both in virtuosity and in tone.
A group of Handel arias displays a range of moods – a spring-heeled “Let the Bright Seraphim” (in which both artists decorate the da capo section), the sweetly expressive and moving aria that concludes Il trionfo, the famous lament from Rinaldo, and the sorceress Melissa’s raging aria in Amadigi calling down the Furies. This last features some brilliant trumpeting with what sounds just like a second trumpet (as also in the Handel concerto, based on the Fireworks Music and a violin sonata) but is, in fact, a pair of baroque oboes – I was completely taken in! The tiny Corelli sonata gives Steele-Perkins (aided by stylish strings and in its central movement by Leslie Pearson’s inventive but unassertive harpsichord continuo) a chance to show both his sense of line and his nimble technique, as does the Purcell “Sound the Trumpet” – not the familiar duet but a solo with elaborate lines. “Hark! the echoing air” is joyously brisk, like the cheery finale to the Scarlatti cantata.
The opening aria to this offers virtuosic opportunities to both artists, but a high spot musically of the work is the aria, “Infelici miei lumi”, with its pathetic suspensions and chromaticisms. A honey of a disc, and I feel sure we shall hear much more of Jeni Bern.'