Richard Egarr's tongue-in-cheek sleeve-notes sum it up: here is a composer as zanily English as the Goons, yet a composer whose suites and grounds are as sensually addictive as chocolate, the craze for which likely killed Purcell in 1695.
Tautly, elegantly constructed, the A minor, G minor and D Minor suites are stretched and pulled into an almost bluesy suggestiveness in Egarr's ripe performance. Delicious decorations in the "Ground in Gamut" raise the temperature still further.
Pick of the album: The divine 'Almand' of the D Minor Suite
