Andrew Grove

In this first period-instrument recording of Dido, Andrew Parrott tries to re-create the first known performance of the work–at Josiah Priest's School for Young Gentlewomen in London. Here (as there) the cast includes only one male–David Thomas, whose brawny Aeneas could overwhelm Dido physically as well as emotionally. Judith Nelson is a warm, sweet-toned Belinda; the Sorceress gets a vivid, raucous, love-it-or-hate-it performance by the legendary medieval-cum-folk-singer Jantina Noorman. Emma Kirkby, early in her career, sounds eloquent but extremely youthful as Dido–barely past her teens. This makes for a different, perhaps more credible, tragedy: a new, slightly immature queen, servant rather than mistress of her emotions, angrily refuses to take back the lover who abandoned her–only to die heartbroken after banishing him.

British tenor Mark Padmore brings together a collection of English and Italian arias from Handel oratorios and operas. Padmore, who performs works of many eras in a wide range of styles, has primarily settled into the kind of repertoire Peter Pears comfortably inhabited, but with a stronger emphasis on Baroque opera and oratorio. Padmore's voice resembles Pears' in some ways; it's a light instrument, and is capable of great agility. It has some of Pears' limitations, particularly a tendency toward tonal blandness and lack of variety in its colors, as well as a slight edge when pushed. Most importantly, though, Padmore does not have Pears' reedy quality or breathiness – his voice is pure and more mellow than Pears'.