Full of the Highland Humours
Ensemble Hesperi
EM Records, EMR CD074. 62’05
I have heard the impressive Ensemble Hesperi several times live (one review is here), and welcome this debut recording, the result of a successful crowdfunding campaign. Building on their exploration of the repertoire of 18th-century Scottish composers, and the influence of Scottish music on London’s musical life, this attractive recording reveals London’s cross-cultural influences from Scotland and Italy. The CD title comes from Henry Playford’s A Collection of Original Scotch Tunes: Full of the Highland Humours, the first collection of Scottish music known in London.
After reforming, renaming, and regrowing itself from the long-running Lufthansa Festival, the London Festival of Baroque Music has become, phoenix-like, one of the most important early music festivals in London. Under the banner of ‘Baroque at the Edge: pushing the boundaries‘, this year’s LFBM used the music of Monteverdi and Telemann, from either end of the Baroque (and both with anniversaries this year) to explore ‘some of the chronological, geographical and stylistic peripheries of Baroque Music’. With one exception, all the concerts were held in the Baroque splendour of St John’s, Smith Square. 
Andrew Benson-Wilson : Early Music Reviews + 