A Glimpse of Earthly Delights
Northern Star Festival 2020 Online
The Swedish Church in London. 18 October 2020
When one coffee-loving soul meets another . . .
A love story riding on the river of ground bass surrounded by all delights on earth and everything wonderful in life.
With little chance of a live audience, many musicians are taking to online concerts. One such is this delightful video from the Northern Star Festival, with a performance of “music and poetry about food, drink, love and all that’s wonderful in life“.
Singers Emily Atkinson and Rory Carver, together with Yu-Wei Hu, flute, Rosie Moon, double bass, and Johan Löfving, theorbo, lead us through a well-chosen and nicely contrasted 30-minute programme of music, excellently recorded and videod by Ioannis Theordoridis. It was recorded in the usual venue for the festival, London’s Swedish Church. It was first released on the date and time that a live concert would normally have taken place, 3:15 on 18 October, but remains accessible to view online.
The performances are outstanding from all the performers, and the video captures the mood of the occasion well. The inclusion of a spoken extract from The Tempest, very well delivered by Rosie Moon, is very welcome.
Commendably, the recording is not behind a pay-wall, although quite understandably the performers ask for a donation through their Paypal account. In these troubled times, such contributions are vital to enable musicians to keep music alive.
Michel Lambert: Vos mépris chaque jour
George Frideric Handel: Flute Sonata in G
William Shakespeare: The Tempest, Act III Scene ii
Gaspar Sanz: Canarios
Mathew Locke: The Delights of the Bottle
Jacques-Martin Hotteterre : Prelude and Air de M. de Bousset
Henry Purcell: Music for a While
Johann Sebastian Bach: Ei! wie schmeckt der Coffee süße (Coffee Cantata)
Claudio Monteverdi: Pur ti miro (L’incoronazione di Poppea)
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 