Here’s an old-fashioned recital from the mellifluous Renato Bruson. The arias are much-loved evergreens – most of them anyway – and the recording location was Berlin back in 1988 where Bruson was accompanied by the RIAS orchestra under his compatriot Roberto Paternostro.

Caro mio ben is one of those arias that sound easier to sing than they actually are. For all Bruson’s charm his baritone struggles slightly going up – there’s a hint of strain in the voice – though the tempo is taken well and quite briskly so as not to impose too many problems with regard to breath control. The orchestral accompaniment here and in, say, Scarlatti’s Già il sole del Gange is not too richly upholstered; modern instruments of course. For the Caccini we have an organ to accompany and Bruson cultivates a certain nobility, a veritable sweetness that impress whilst in the very Mozartian Cimador (hints of Così here) he is adeptly elegant. There are one of two registral demands in the Marcello – most of them well met – though here the band does sound rather distant, as it can elsewhere and Bruson does indulge an Old School outburst or two, dramatically speaking.

His Caldara arias are fine after their fashion (this is not the David Daniels school of Caldara singing, mind) and he spins out the Martini the more to savour it. I miss some vocal colour in the Parisitti and the Gluck is just on the sedate side; there can be times when he’s not interventionist and rousing enough. But I found the Monteverdi eloquent.

The booklet is in German, English and French. The texts are in Italian with a German translation only. Bruson was in good, attractive voice for this recital; I would recommend it mainly to his admirers.

Jonathan Woolf

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