In June 1993 the three founding members of Sour Cream, the avant-garde recorder trio created originally in 1972, got together again in order to make a new recording. The ensuing double album became the stuff of legend.

Frans Brüggen, Kees Boeke and Walter van Hauwe, joined by Isabel Álvarez (voice) and Toyohiko Satoh (lutes), went into the studio with a programme called 'The Passion of Reason' which made a journey through music with a scientific slant to it, influenced by the concept of the mediaeval quadrivium or the convergence of music, arithmetic, astronomy and geometry.

With pieces by composers ranging across five centuries, from Guillaume de Machaut to J S Bach, by way of Solage, William Cornysh and Heinrich Isaac, together with the mysterious repertory from the Baldwin manuscript, the members of Sour Cream raised a fascinating and hypnotic edifice in sound, taking the listener back to the speculative world of Hermetic philosophy and alchemy.

Initially released on the Attacca label by Sieuwert Verster (the co-founder of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and inseparable colleague of Frans Brüggen), 'The Passion of Reason' was reissued by Glossa in 1997. After several years of the album being out of stock, we are pleased now to be able to bring this recording, timeless like so few others, back into our catalogue.

Sour Cream:
- Frans Brüggen [recorders]
- Kees Boeke [recorders & viola da gamba]
- Walter van Hauwe [recorders]