Reviewed by John Irvine

Capella Istropolitana are an orchestra from Czechoslovakia specialising in baroque and 18th century music. They have recorded many fine discs for Naxos already. This, however, is a more varied offering in terms of performance - the fault of the choir (who sound somewhat tired and worn out) rather than the soloists and orchestra who are both excellent. The sound quality is generally of a high standard, but the acoustics of the recording location favour the soloists and the orchestra at the expense of the choir who seem at times to be too "boomy", too "thick". At times this leads to the choir drowning out the orchestra. In particular the credo gets off to a bad start with a distinctly off pitch choir dominating the scene. In general disc 1 is much better than disc 2 in terms of both performance and sound quality. A few gems are scattered throughout the two hours of this recording where suddenly, unexpectedly, the choir start to put their weight, sing in tune and balance themselves properly with everyone else. At these points some real moments of clear, stunning brilliance are achieved. Pity the choir couldn't have sustained it throughout.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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