[2] The Mozart arias on the second version of the album were recorded using analogue technology in May 1977 in the Palais de la Musique et des Congrès, Strasbourg.

On the one hand, some listeners would "delight in [their] sheer sensuousness"; on the other, people who placed a premium on fidelity to Monteverdi's and Cavalli's intentions would "protest that this isn't really how the music should sound".

It was true, too, that von Stade sang with more "consistently even tone" than some of her predecessors in the album's repertoire, and that, "an experienced artist in baroque opera", she scarcely perpetrated an unstylistic note from the first bar of her LP to the last.

He was more comfortable with Leppard's realizations than Blyth had been, writing approvingly that the conductor had not sought "to produce an anaemic 'authentic' back-up from the orchestra, who support the voice with the most attractive string textures".

He did agree with Blyth about von Stade's limitations as an interpreter, regretting that her singing did not offer "the kind of emotional depth we would expect from an artist like Dame Janet Baker".

"The orchestral effects", he wrote, "are of such continuous appeal and inventiveness ... that I am inclined to give the Scottish Chamber Orchestra star billing alongside ... Frederica von Stade".

In 1995, Erato released the second version of the album on CD (catalogue number 4509-98504-2) with a 16-page booklet with no texts but with notes by Roger Tellant and Charles Osborne.