‘In furore is the ideal score for any soprano who’s spoiling for a fight – with herself!’ So says Sandrine Piau in the booklet for this latest release in Naïve’s estimable Vivaldi edition, and she could have added that it also makes a superb opener for any disc. The motet could have been made for a singer of Piau’s avian lightness and agility, and sure enough she throws herself into it, bringing to it her usual precision and, with a technique that enables plenty of dazzling extra ornaments, winning personality.

Deborah York, performing for Robert King’s Vivaldi sacred music series (Hyperion, 7/96), is almost as effortlessly accurate but her performance lacks Piau’s energy and imagination; crucially, Piau manages to find contrast in the work, not just between its fearful opening movement and more penitential second, but on a local scale as well. In the Laudate pueri, an altogether more urbane offering, she sings with poise, expressive sophistication and tonal power, compared to which King’s singer, Carolyn Sampson, is more charmingly artless but also less technically polished (A/01).

Piau’s quickness of mind is matched by the orchestral playing of Accademia Bizantina, whose sound, typically for an Italian group, is grainier than The King’s Consort but allows for a more alert and intense approach to interpretative detail. Thus they never fail to enhance the mood of a particular number, a skill which they also put to good use in the disc’s three orchestral works.