Music for mixed ensembles has been a feature of the music of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies from the very beginning, as has the use of earlier musical styles ranging from a few years before to centuries earlier. Linguae Ignis, premièred in 2002 by the forces that perform it on this disc, is a beautiful, elegiac work. Maxwell Davies entwines two Pentecostal Plainchants, gradually generating rich dance patterns, to which the solo cello responds with eloquent reserve. Dating from much earlier, Vesalii Icones, which also has a prominent rôle for solo cello, is a set of fourteen dances, based on illustrations by Vesalius, that play out the Stations of the Cross in music of profound ritualistic expression. By contrast the Fantasia and Two Pavans provide a sardonic and provocative gloss on Purcell.