Penelope Appleyard

Sense & Musicality: Jane Austen and Music

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Sense & Musicality
The love story of Jane Austen and Music
Penelope Appleyard, Jonathan Delbridge
Newbury Spring Festival
Shaw House, Newbury. 13 May 2025

In the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth in Steventon, near Basingstoke, much attention has been paid to her writings and the aspects of her own life that her books reveal. One part of her life that can be overlooked is her love of and interest in music. One example of the quest to explore Jane Austen’s musical interests came with a performance of Sense & Musicality: “The love story of Jane Austen and Music” given by soprano Penelope Appleyard and Jonathan Delbridge, playing his own 1814 Broadwood square piano, in the Hall of Shaw House, Newbury, not far from her birthplace.

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Fair Oriana: Divine Songs of Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Divine Songs of Passion
Fair Oriana, with David Wright & Harry Buckoke
St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield, London EC1A
13 April 2022
(and at Sands Films Music Room on 21 April)

As part of their Holy Week Mass and Music series of events, the historic church of St Bartholomew the Great in London’s Smithfield invited the soprano duo, Fair Oriana, to perform their programme Divine Songs of Passion. This well-constructed concert was based around François Couperin’s c1714 Leçons de ténèbres pour le mercredi saint, contrasted with music by d’Anglebert, Purcell, Pergolesi and Blow. The date of the concert was appropriate, as the only surviving part of the Couperin Leçons de ténèbres is the one for the Wednesday of Holy Week. The other two sets of three Leçons composed for the following two days are lost. Although the Lamentations of Jeremiah depict the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, they have long been associated with Holy Week.

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Fair Oriana: Two Voices

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Fair Oriana: Two Voices
Angela Hicks & Penelope Appleyard
VOCES8 records: VCM 134. 68’14

Image 1 - *PRE-ORDER* FAIR ORIANA: TWO VOICES (CD.)

Two Voices is the debut recording from the soprano duo Fair Oriana (Angela Hicks & Penelope Appleyard). It is described as “a unique, diverse collection of beguiling chamber music from renaissance to baroque, with splashes of folk, medieval and contemporary influence along the way”. The pieces are divided into four volumes, exploring the sentiments of happiness in love, intrigue and teasing in love, passion, and the loss of love. As well as all twelve of Thomas Morley’s 1595 a capella ‘Canzonets to Two Voices’, there are other pieces drawn from Fair Oriana’s’ concert programmes together with specially commissioned pieces from contemporary composers Fraser Wilson and Owain Park.

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Georg Friedrich Händel: Neun Deutsche Arien

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Georg Friedrich Händel: Neun Deutsche Arien
Penelope Appleyard, Florisma
Convivium Records CR043. 52’00

Handel’s Neun Deutsche Arien (Nine German Arias) were composed around 1725, some sixteen years after his arrival in London. In sharp contrast to his compositions at the time (which included the operas Tamerlano, Rodelinda, and Alessandro), these nine short arias, all but one in da capo form, are intimate small-scale pieces for a solo singer, a solo instrument and continuo bass. Continue reading →

Handel: Aminta e Fillide

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Handel: Aminta e Fillide
Fair Oriana
Opera Settecento, Leo Duarte
The Handel Friends
St George’s, Hanover Square, 28 November 2019

It was entirely appropriate that this concert, given under the auspices of The Handel Friends, should take place in Handel’s own church of St George’s, Hanover Square, just round the corner from his surviving home. After 30-minutes of instrumental music and sumptuous interval refreshments (all part of the deal) came an inspirational performance of Handel’s pastoral cantata Aminta e Fillide, performed with the soprano duo Fair Oriana (Angela Hicks & Penelope Appleyard).

Aminta 4.jpegPenelope Appleyard & Angela Hicks (Fair Oriana) Continue reading →