Manze's sleeve note leaves you wanting to cheer--everything about the playing in this tribute album bears out his poke at the "over-absorption with instrumentation, text, techniques and treatises" that has typified much period performance. The colour, daring, individuality and sheer imagination of a typical Manze interpretation force you to react, to take sides--which is what performance should be about. Even so, the great thing about such a compilation CD is the way it demonstrates one of the central arguments Manze cites in defence of the way he plays--that there is not one Andrew Manze but many, depending on whose music he is tackling. He knows perfectly well how to "behave"--when it is musically appropriate. His many fans will be lapping up this CD, a judicious chamber and orchestral mix of the familiar (Bach, Vivaldi, Handel) and the lesser known (Rebel, Marini, Pandolfi, Uccellini, and more). The Manze reconstruction of Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor (emerging in A minor) is as intriguing as hearing what a Jacques Loussier can do with a Bach original. A teasing taste of the recording of Handel sonatas to be released in 2001 is an added bonus. --Andrew Green