Katy Hill

The Sixteen. Purcell: The Fairy Queen

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: The Fairy Queen
The Sixteen, Harry Christophers
Matthew Brook, Robin Blaze, Antonia Christophers
Cadogan Hall. 25 September 2024


There are many ways to perform Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, including a particularly energetic one at this year’s BBC Proms and another earlier in the year from HGO. In my review of the Proms version, I suggested that “… this must rank as one of the most inventive and entertaining” of the many versions of this musical extravaganza I have seen. I can now add this outstanding concert performance of Purcell’s music by Harry Christophers and The Sixteen to my list of favourites. Not only was it “inventive and entertaining” but, with the aid of one of the best programme booklets I have ever read and the lively, engaging and informative narrator, Antonia Christophers (I guess, a relation), the whole thing made perfect sense.

Continue reading →

Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs Vol II

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II. Vol II
The Sixteen, Harry Christopers
Coro COR16173. 72’27

Purcell: Royal Welcome Songs for King Charles II, Volume II. Album by The Sixteen

The Sixteen continue their series of music written by Purcell for royal occasions with this 2019 recording. Designed to promote King Charles II as a strong and stable (a familiar phrase) and divinely appointed monarch, the music is by turn delicate and grand, celebrating the nobility of the King and his apparent political triumphs. The highlight is the 1683 Welcome to all the pleasures notably the jubilant concluding chorus in praise of St Cecilia: In a consort of voices. Continue reading →

The Sixteen at Christmas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The Sixteen at Christmas
Harry Christophers, Frances Kelly (harp)
The Anvil, Basingstoke, 4 December 2019

As their 40th anniversary year draws to a close, The Sixteen’s seasonal tour of their ‘Sixteen at Christmas‘ programme stopped by at Basingstoke’s Anvil concert hall for a varied selection of music for Advent and Christmas. Their focus was on traditional medieval and 20th and 21st-century composers, most of the latter influenced by former. Until the Ding dong encore, it avoided all the usual carols of childhood memory. The key piece was the concluding Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten, a sequence of pieces based on medieval texts that he started writing during a 1942 Atlantic crossing. Continue reading →