Rowan Pierce - The Cares of Lovers - Opera Now

Rather more serious is the debut album from young soprano Rowan Pierce, who has not long finished study at the Royal College of Music and is now cutting a sweet-voiced swathe through the early music world. She sings a number of songs by Purcell, varying in tone from melancholic to comic and indeed deranged, including examples of "mad songs". Pierce uses a highly effective range of vocal colours, ranging from a deliberately blanched tone to a much fuller and richer sound and she successfully walks the thin line between sounding either too sophisticated or too guileless. So while there is limpidity to her performance there is also some thrust and excitement when she opens the tone. Her diction is outstanding. Additional colour is provided by Richard Egarr on the harpsichord and William Carter on the lute and theorbo, apparently a deliberately restricted choice of accompaniment in order to maximise a restricted palette.