''Unusual music, but a rewarding release'' was how I summed up Hyperion's recording of Zelenka's Lamentations of Jeremiah earlier this year, little knowing that another version was following hard on its heels from the Dutch Globe label. Such duplication does, after all, come as a bit of a surprise when you consider that previously there had only ever been one complete recording.
Far, however, from having their effectiveness eroded by closer acquaintance, the particular qualities of this music are instead emphasized by the new recording. Unlike Hyperion's group, the Amsterdam Bregynhof Academy has a conductor, in the person of Englishman Roderick Shaw, and the greater purpose he brings to these performances helps to highlight the restless, strangely unsettling nature of Zelenka's music. Each of these six lamentations for single voice and ensemble freely mixes recitative and arioso sections before being rounded off by an aria or a fugue, and Shaw's singers deliver them all with an urgency and attention to the sense of the words that makes the English team sound a little unimaginative by comparison. The more dramatic view of things is helped, too, by a cleaner acoustic and a balance which gives the voices greater immediacy (Hyperion's singers are oddly distant) while still allowing details of instrumental colouring and texture to make an impact. This is not to decry Messrs Chance, Ainsley and George, who merely attach greater importance to sustained lyricism and the long-range shaping of phrases, a position they are also the better-equipped trio to adopt. And although the Dutch sing intelligently and characterfully, Hein Meens's intonation is unreliable to say the least, Max van Egmond has occasional moments of vocal insecurity, and Ulla Groenewold, a solid, countertenor-like contralto, has a somewhat harsh edge to her lower register.
In the end, the two recordings make a straightforward contrast—the English performance smooth, fluid and a trifle reserved, the Dutch one vocally inferior but texturally lucid and on the whole more involving. Both have their moments, so choosing between them must therefore come down to which of the two approaches you prefer—and there I can't help you.'