Despite an occasional throatiness reminiscent of the gorgeous Suzie LeBlanc, Spägele's voice is not classically beautiful. It can sometimes sound slightly hard, particularly in the upper range, where its tone can also sound a little constricted. Yet, as Spägele has already demonstrated in the Strozzi disc, her voice is especially agile and well-suited to manoeuvring the profuse trills, gorgie and florid runs so beloved of the 17th century Italian musical avant-garde. Even more importantly, she is a superb vocal dramatist. The disc's highlight is also its conclusion, Amante, io vo si dire, which is set to the ciaccona bass familiar to us from Monteverdi's Book 8 madrigal, Zefiro torna, and is also Ferrari's tribute to Tarquinio Merula. Spägele's performance of this deliriously virtuosic and amusingly bitter song is a technical and theatrical tour de force. By their imaginative accompaniments throughout this recital, the continuo players, Hubert Hoffmann (chitarrone), Matthias Müller-Mohr (lirone) and Detlef Bratschke (harpsichord and organ), unerringly reinforce Spägele's operatic vision of these works. CRISTOPHER PRICE