This is obviously a red-letter day. The Orlando Consort’s complete songs of Machaut is concluded (lacking only a few monophonic lais): all 11 albums with the same four singers, all beautifully controlled, all perfectly balanced and paced, and – perhaps most important of all – entirely without eccentricities. As always, the Orlandos do everything without any instrumental participation; but I think we are all now agreed that, while that is by no means the only plausible solution, it is at least one thoroughly acceptable approach. ... Could anyone but Hyperion have backed such a risky project? Probably not, but we must salute the company’s courage and rejoice that – among all the recent shocks and scares in the record industry – it saw the project through to the end.  David Fallows