Boyce Symphonies Op 2

Some years ago, Trevor Pinnock and The English Concert made an excellent recording which I thought unlikely to be surpassed; but I'm not sure that this new one isn't even better.

Christopher Hogwood gives a great deal of attention to the textural depth of the music, and you hear a good deal more of inner detail; Pinnock rather favours a breezier approach, with more concentration on the melodic line and the momentum...

Hogwood’s are a good deal more thoughtful and more attentive to detail. He shapes the cadences with considerable care, for example in the first movement of No. 2 or the Gavotte of No. 5. The inspiriting first movement of No. 4 receives a particularly delightful performance, rich and solid, with a happy sense of the music’s logic; and Hogwood catches the eccentric character of the music well, for example in the curious Moderato movement at the middle of No. 7 or in the odd little Vivace at the centre of No. 3... All the fugal movements go well, done with vitality and a feeling for their logic.

Gramophone, April 1994