Dunedin Consort - Mozart- C.P.E. Bach - Gramophone

It’s a fine performance, albeit on a smaller scale than many others. The choir is no more than 18 strong, and of course divides into five and eight parts over the course of the work. 

The two sopranos are as much the stars as the chorus, and Lucy Crowe and Anna Dennis blend well in their duets.

What makes this album the more attractive, though, is the inclusion of CPE Bach’s double-choir Heilig – a work whose influence Kemme divines in K427. Jess Dandy is an authoritative alto soloist in the introductory Ariette before a dialogue between spatially separated choirs of ‘angels’ and ‘people’, concluding in a noisy, brass-bedecked fugue. It’s a delicious rarity, and it’s a fantastic performance.