The Cleveland-based Baroque orchestra Apollo’s Fire has been making CDs for over 10 years now but is currently enjoying a relaunch on this side of the Atlantic as Avie reissue some recordings previously released on the Canadian Eclectra label. This Vespers was recorded in 1998 and is offered now “as a small contribution to the worldwide celebration of Monteverdi’s groundbreaking work”. Interestingly, though, it is only the second “new” recording of the work to have come my way in this anniversary year.

Nuts and bolts first: Jeannette Sorrell’s version of the Vespers uses a small choir, includes chant antiphons (chosen on the grounds of tonal rather than liturgical compatibility), employs instrumental doubling in the psalms and opts to keep the Magnificat at notated pitch rather than transposing it downwards as most directors do these days. Imagining the work as having been conceived for a mid-sized Mantuan city church celebration such as the 1608 wedding of Francesco Gonzaga and Margaret of Savoy, Sorrell says she hopes to have “captured the fleetness, flexibility and dynamic contrast” of Monteverdi’s intention.

In this she is largely successful. This is a performance that is light on its feet and, without descending into mannerism, enjoys the rhetorical detail in Monteverdi’s word-setting. The choral chanting in the “Dixit Dominus” and the batted double-choir alternations of “Nisi Dominus” are fast and fiery, but at other times there is great tenderness and reverence. The solos, too, are often ardently responsive to text, with Ian Honeyman impassioned, edgy and freely ornamental in “Nigra sum”, and Sandra Simon and Jennifer Ellis Kampani swellingly urgent in “Pulchra es”. Somehow, though, the overall impression of this performance is still one of honest respect and humility.

Where it falls down is on overall vocal and sonic polish. Despite fine instrumental playing led by the skilled cornett of Jean Tubéry, the ear is often troubled by inexact choral tuning, and while the principal solo voices are more characterful, there are places where they mirror the technical insecurities of the choir. The recorded sound is sometimes a shade hollow (particularly of the choir), and the strange non-musical noises that affect the Sonata should never have made it through to the final edit. For these reasons this is not a Vespers to beat the rest; but as one that is both sincere and heartfelt it certainly has something to say.