Although it’s not clear from the disc’s title, this well-conceived program features more than arias accompanied by oboe d’amore; it also contains two arias without oboe and two instrumental concertos. In other words, it’s a celebration of some of Bach’s finest music “in the alto register,” as oboist Bruce Haynes says in the disc’s informative liner notes. Listeners familiar with either or both of these two artists will expect great things from this pairing: countertenor Daniel Taylor and oboe d’amore master Haynes are among the world’s best. Their downfall here is not their own performances, which, except for Taylor’s unconvincingly frantic “Saget, saget mir geschwinde” from the Easter Oratorio, are brilliant; it’s their disorganized instrumental colleagues who just can’t seem to decide on important matters like phrasing and tempo. The two soloists often seem at odds with them, trying to follow rather than lead. Taylor’s singing is beautiful (especially in the opening “Erbarme dich”), and Haynes delivers that marvelously rich and reedy oboe d’amore sound as one born to it. Too bad that the solo violinist and cellist disturb the music’s flow with weirdly accented phrases and self-conscious ornamentation. More rehearsal time and a consistent interpretive vision would have made all the difference.
