Sweet Stillness features British artists Davina Clarke (violinist) and Mary Bevan (soprano). The project is centred around Handel’s Neun Deutsche Arien, set to the texts of Barthold Heinrich Brockes. With exemplary obligato-style writing, frequent appearances in recital repertoires, and few recordings available, we have decided to share our interpretations of the arias. Sweet Stillness puts the Nine German Arias in a revised order which Brockes intimated for them, called the Frühlings-Cantata (Spring Cantata). This order makes them much more suited for a sequential performance than the original autograph, which places many arias in the same key as the one that follows; in Brockes' order, pleasing key relations between arias emerge. These historical texts have also been given a modern twist by translating and distilling each text into two lines of English prose, specially and newly written by Baroque cellist Jonathan Rees, who is a close friend.

Indeed, the album is an interdisciplinary project of poetry, music and art, connected thematically by nature but also through a collaborative effort borne of friendship. Many of our peers and close friends have contributed to the album's artwork; cover art shot by operatic tenor Andrew Staples, sleeve notes from oboist Leo Duarte, and translations hand-written in ink calligraphy by baroque violinist Julia Kuhn which have been set upon vibrant watercolours hand-painted by Rees