[Butt’s] flexible approach to the vexed question of the proportional speeds between duple and triple sections produces some surprisingly languid effects…but a dance-like vitality elsewhere…using just ten singers creates a great transparency of texture

Vital passion (especially in the concerti), fresh, compelling fervour, luminous clarity and exquisite phrasing flow from ten vocal virtuosi and brilliant instrumentalists. Even if one prefers interpretations with a ripieno choir, it must be conceded that small forces of this quality can pack a knock-out punch – che forza!

a virtuoso display of individual talents.

Butt’s innate ability to shape a movement is regularly on show…The contours of the music are further delineated by another of Butt’s performance decisions, which is to find tempo relationships which lead to triple-time sections being about half the speed we have become used to hearing…With so many Vespers recordings out there, this one joins the ranks of those with both a character of its own and something to say.

The Dunedin Consort’s 10 voices combine to make a magnificent choral sound in Lauda Jerusalem, yet have the flexibility for the melismatic writing of their solos in Pulchra es and Duo Seraphim.

Gone are all plainsong antiphons and other contextual additions; what is presented instead is a varied collection of individual pieces of sacred music. This is a shock, though the recording sounds fresh and clear, emphasising transparency without a big reverberant acoustic.

If you want some Monteverdi in your life, you can’t do better than this new recording of his Vespers from the Edinburgh-based choir the Dunedin Consort, under their music director John Butt, a man of many talents: a first-class musicologist, a communicator with a gift for explaining complex points, and an excellent conductor.

a brisk bright sounding performance and if you miss the grandeur of the larger forces you gain in clarity, transparency and rhythmic flexibility as well. And the standard of solo singing is outstanding, beautifully ornamented. It's typical Butt, he'll have you rethinking how Monteverdi's Vespers might sound and it's a well matched recording as well.

Any recording by Butt is an event. And this one, recorded with a small, hand-picked choir of ten voices, is special even by his elevated standard.