The pared-back beauty of the 500-year-old Coventry Carol makes it ideal for contemporary treatment, especially in the hands of musicians as soulful and imaginative as cellist Anastasia Kobekina and pianist Jean-Sélim Abdelmoula who bring Tim Allhoff’s atmospheric arrangement to breathtaking life. “This carol is so poignant and haunting,” Kobekina tells Apple Music Classical. “I love art that subverts expectations and contains a whole multitude of emotions and hidden depths of feeling behind what may on the surface appear quite simple.” Against a backdrop of gentle piano chords that subtly subvert our expectations, but yet preserve the timeless spirit of the original, Kobekina twice intones The Coventry Carol before piano and cello rhapsodize on its harmonies. Eventually they come to rest, at the final resolving note, on a warmly reassuring major chord. “I love what Tim Allhoff has created here for me,” explains Kobekina, “how beautifully it combines modern and ancient.”