The 400th anniversary of Monteverdi’s Vespers continues to make its presence felt with this new account from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under their keyboard player Robert Howarth, the product of a specially convened concert at Kings Place in London last August following a springtime European tour with the piece. This is essentially a “straight” performance in the sense that there is no added chant, the order of pieces is as per the original publication (though with the addition of a motet, Exultent caeli, and a Violin Sonata by Fontana somewhat curiously placed at the very end), and instrumental participation is restricted to what appears in Monteverdi’s score, Howarth perhaps reckoning that his 22-strong choir is substantial enough.

So it is, the typically British line-up of expert consort singers providing some lusty moments and responding well to Howarth’s robust attention to the meaning of the words. It also serves up some fine soloists, not least Nicholas Mulroy, a tenor already on his third Vespers recording and getting better with each one. But the choir’s collective sound is somehow rather plain, at times even pallid. It may be that the concert-hall acoustic is a bit mean on them or possibly that the selected high pitch of A=466 is out of their vocal comfort zone (that perhaps also being the reason for some unusual shifts in tone-colour and lapses in intensity), but it is also fair to say that Howarth does not shape and blend his choral sound with the skill of a Christie or a Gardiner. He does have some nice interpretative ideas, though: the ritornellos in the opening Responsorium swing deliciously, the excellently sung Exultent caeli is suitably uplifting and the Magnificat effectively swift-paced. That this is a concert recording, however, is proved by a number of small accidents of tuning and ensemble.

Of recent Vespers releases, Christina Pluhar’s one-to-a-part recording with L’Arpeggiata (Virgin, 5/11) is a stunning and colourful arrival on the scene; Howarth’s less vivid choral version may not excite in the same way, and nor does it have the same level of finish, but it has a certain coherence and honesty of its own all the same.