Rare has become the ensemble that releases its first album a decade after formation. But much is gained by Klingzeug’s patient preparation: this is a thoughtful, evocative and confident debut. The many colours of ‘Memento mori’ – ‘remember you must die’ – are captured here in non-saccharine sincerity, and with lovely and inventive sound from BIS. Perhaps the disc’s most remarkable moment is its wordless heart: the famous lament from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, but without singer. Instead, violinist Claudia Delago-Norz takes on the role of the Queen of Carthage. It is magical. Her sound is irresistibly fragile – or, at least, lacking in grandeur in the most alluring way. Delago-Norz isn’t concerned with selling us something; rather, her virtuosity is in honesty. And such evocation is found throughout the album. The performance of Schmelzer’s Lamento sopra la morte Ferdinandi III is excellently paced (to which the haunting stillness of Carmen Treichl’s photography in the booklet provides meditative counterpoint). These are performances that move us to listen closer, that urge us to water our ears so that they grow bigger, more able to detect every minute detail.

Yet by the time of the fugue by Giacomo Antonio Perti, I need something more than wispy wonder and lingering introspection. I’m yearning for drama, and though this does arrive in the throbbing gut of Pietro Locatelli’s Sinfonia funebre, it’s one or two tracks too late for the pacing of the whole. The fabulous rippling from harpsichordist Martin Riccabona perhaps makes up for the wait. His arpeggiations blow through the texture as an eloquent wind, swerving between the roles of commentary – one can almost hear eyebrows of surprise – and harmonic drive. Klingzeug seem to delight in this idea of changing roles. The album’s final offering, a simple setting of Pachelbel’s Alle Menschen müssen sterben, is repeated three times. Or is it? With each repetition quieter than the previous, Klingzeug create the impression that the music is still going, ad infinitum, with only the distance between the listener and the performance increasing. In other words, the tables are turned: we, the listener, become the soul that rises to heaven, gradually becoming unable to make out the earthly music.