Purcell

Baroquestock. King Arthur

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Baroquestock Festival
Purcell: King Arthur
Istante Collective, Matthew Brown, Natalie Coury
Heath Street Baptist Church, Hampstead. 10 May 2016

Under the title of “Possible Planets, Musical Spheres”, the latest annual Baroquestock Festival has been bringing the crowds into Hampstead’s homely Heath Street Baptist Church, notably for two performances of Purcell’s King Arthur. The original was first performed in May 1691 in the form of the very English Restoration genre of semi-opera, combining a spoken play with a series of musical masques at intervals during the play, reflecting aspects of the play, but usually without any of the principal roles of the play. Although it is usually performed just as a musical suite, this innovative production included enough elements of the spoken text and action to get a feel of a 17th century performance, aided by some impressive acting from the five singers, and real acting and narration from Christopher Hunter and dance from Tamra Hinson.

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Gabrieli: Purcell – Fairy Queen

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: The Fairy Queen
Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh
St Martin-in-the-Fields. 7 November 2025

The Fairy Queen is one of Gabrieli’s calling cards, with many performances over the years. I last reviewed them in 2018 at St John’s, Smith Square, shortly before they recorded it (SIGCD615). Several of the singers and players from that recording remain for their latest London performance in St Martin-in-the-Fields.

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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.

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Proms: Purcell’s The Fairy Queen

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

BBC Proms: Purcell’s The Fairy Queen
Les Arts Florissants, Le Jardin des Voix, Compagnie KÄFIG
Paul Agnew, conductor, Mourad Merzouki, choreographer/stage director
Royal Albert Hall, 6 August 2024


There are many ways to perform Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, but this must rank as one of the most inventive and entertaining. I have seen many versions of this musical extravaganza, including a bottom-numbingly-long version that attempted to recreate the original 1692 production when Purcell’s five masques were interspersed between sections of the spoken play, which was an appallingly turgid adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Composed to celebrate the anniversary of William and Mary’s wedding, Purcell’s five masques bear a marginal and rather metaphysical and academic relationship (explained here) to Shakespeare’s play, the revised version concentrating on the dream-like world of the fairies. The five masques are all introduced by Titania or Oberon, who may well have been played by eight or nine-year-old children, seemingly joined by a wider cast of young children.

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HGO: Purcell – The Fairy Queen

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell, The Fairy Queen
HGO, HGOAntiqua Orchestra, Seb Gillot, Eloise Lally
Jacksons Lane Arts Centre, Highgate, 27 April 2024


Purcell’s ‘semi-opera’ is a complicated piece to perform and/or stage. Originally composed for a version of Shakespeare’s MIdsummer’s Nights Dream it includes incidental instrumental pieces (First and Second Music as the audience gathered, Act Tunes between acts, short symphonies at the start of each act and various dances) together with five staged masques at the end of each act. The whole thing lasts about 5 hours. I watched the bemused audience at Glyndebourne in 2009 as they sat through around 45 minutes of spoken text before the first masque. The music and text of the masques only bear a metaphorical relationship to the Shakespear tale. This impressive production by HGO (formally known as Hampstead Garden Opera) added an additional layer of interpretation by setting the whole thing as “a variety of incarnations by a magical tale-spinner, a photographer studying love through her camera lens”.  They promised to take us “through the gamut of human emotions … as we are taken into the photographer’s dream space where anything is possible. In a brief spoken introduction, we were told that “mischiefs are at play”. Indeed they were.

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Hail! Bright Cecilia

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

‘Tis Nature’s Voice
Hail! Bright Cecilia
Academy of Ancient Music, Laurence Cummings
Milton Court. 9 March 2023

Matthew Locke etc. Suite from The Tempest
including Pelham Humfrey’s Masque of Neptune
Henry Purcell. Ode to Saint Cecilia: Hail! Bright Cecilia Z.328

Under the banner of the Academy of Ancient Music’s current concert series, ‘Tis nature’s voice! Laurence Cummings led them in a tour of English mid to late-17th-century music with a comparison between the music written by several composers for a 1674 production of The Tempest and the largest of Purcell’s Odes to Saint Cecilia, composed for the 1692 Saint Cecilia’s Day celebrations in Stationers’ Hall, a venue that still exists.

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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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Senza Basso — Auf dem Weg zu Bach

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Senza Basso — Auf dem Weg zu Bach
Music by Baltzar, Matteis, Westhoff, Torelli, Corelli,
Vilsmayr, Pisendel, Purcell and Biber
Nadja Zwiener, Violin
Genuin GEN 21728. 65’57

Well known in the UK as the leader of The English Concert and in Germany as leader of the Bachakademie Stuttgart, Senza Basso — Auf dem Weg zu Bach (Without bass — on the way to Bach) is violinist Nadja Zwiener‘s first solo CD. It explores a fascinating genre of music for solo violin preceding Bach’s famous 1720 Six Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. In his programme essay ‘Melodic polyphony, polyphonic melody – composing senza basso in the Baroque era’, Michael Maul points out the challenges of composing, playing and listening to music with a normal bass line, describing it as “an art of omission and of sensing the unplayed”.

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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 →

A Baroque Odyssey: Les Arts Florissants @ 40

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

A Baroque Odyssey
40 Years of Les Arts Florissants
William Christie, Paul Agnew
The Barbican, 8 December 2019

Eavesdropping on a birthday party can be fun, even if you sometimes wish it wouldn’t go on for quite so long. This one did, apparently finishing around 10.30, although I had to leave before 10 to catch my last train home. In celebration of their proud 40-year history, Les Arts Florissants are touring a mixed programme of Handel, Purcell and the French composers Charpentier, d’Ambruis, Lully and Rameau. Under their founding Director William Christie and  Associate Musical Director Paul Agnew, five soloists, a large orchestra and 23-strong choir demonstrated just why they have been so important over the past 40 years. Like any good party, it is perhaps best to leave what happened in the room, in the room, so I will not attempt a critical review – which is probably just as well because I am not sure that I could think of anything critical to say. Continue reading →

Devotion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Devotion
Sacred and secular songs by Henry Purcell
Ensemble Unmeasured, Julia Doyle
Deux-Elles DXL1183. 62’42

Ensemble Unmeasured takes its name for the unmeasured preludes and toccatas of the 17th century “but also refers to the magic of music itself, which cannot be measured or quantified”. In this debut disc, they are joined by soprano Julia Doyle, one of the finest singers of early music around for an exploration of Purcell’s ravishing and intense music. Continue reading →

Purcell: King Arthur (1691)

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: King Arthur (1691)
Gabrieli Consort & Players, Paul McCreesh
Concert: St John’s Smith Square, 30 October 2019
CD: Signum/Winged Lion SIGCD589. 2CD. 97’38

Purcell King Arthur 1691

The new recording by the Gabrieli Consort & Players of Purcell’s King Arthur was launched at an impressive concert performance at St John’s, Smith Square. Lacking the two biggest-name singers from the recording (Carolyn Sampson and Roderick Williams), the concert was otherwise the same as the CD apart from the late replacement bass Robert Davies, standing in for Marcus Farnsworth and a smaller orchestra. Omitting all the spoken text of the original play, the music of King Arthur makes for a musically excellent, but texturally confusing, listen. None of the main characters of the King Arthur story appears. The music occurred at intervals during the play, generally as little masques, only occasionally as one-off songs responding to moments in the play. Continue reading →

Ensemble Diderot: The London & Paris Albums

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

The London & Paris Albums
Ensemble Diderot, Johannes Pramsohler
London: Audax ADX13718. 66’10
Paris: Audax ADX13717. 65’13

Ensemble Diderot: The London Album | Audax ADX13718

Ensemble Diderot: The Paris Album | Audax ADX13717

ADX13718: The Trio Sonata in England before 1680
ADX13717: The Trio Sonata in France before 1700

The impressively energetic Ensemble Diderot continue their series of recordings (on their own label) with these two offerings, comparing and contrasting Trio Sonatas from London and Paris in the latter part of the 17th-century. There are several premiere recordings, some fine examples of the early history of the Trio Sonata, and a few oddities that are nonetheless worth recording, and listening to.

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Andrew Benson-Wilson: Three Westminster Abbey organists

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Music-at-Hill – Midtown concerts

Friday 13 September 2019, 1:10pm

St Giles-in-the-Fields
60 St Giles High Street. London, WC2H 8LG

Andrew Benson-Wilson
plays organ music by
Three Westminster Abbey Organists
1668 John Blow; 1679 Henry Purcell;
1695 Blow re-appointed; 1708-1727 William Croft

DSCF6488.jpg

During the period from 1668 and 1708, Westminster Abbey appointed three distinguished organists, the first of which, John Blow, was the teacher of his two successors, Henry Purcell and William Croft. In 1679 John Blow stepped down from his Abbey post in favour of his talented student, Purcell, only returning on Purcell’s death in 1695. William Croft replaced John Blow after his death in 1708, having previously been organist at St Anne’s Soho and Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal. He is most famed today for his Funeral Sentences, performed at Handel’s funeral in 1759 and at every British state funeral since then.

William Drake’s reconstruction of the Dallam/Smith/England/Lincoln/Gray & Davison organ in St Giles-in-the-Fields is one of London’s most important historic musical instruments. It contains some of the oldest pipework in London, going back to the time of Blow and Purcell in the mid to late 17th century.

Organ information can be found here.
Free admission, retiring collection.
The church is just behind Centre Point/Tottenham Court Road tube station.

Henry Purcell: Symphony while the swans come forward

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Henry Purcell
Symphony while the swans come forward
Le Sfera Armonioso, Mike Fentross, Johannette Zomer
Challenge Classics CC 72783. 78’57

In this live recording, Le Sfera Armonioso present extracts from Purcell’s History of Dioclesian, The Indian Queen, King Arthur and The Fairy Queen. So far, so good. But this is a curious recording, raising questions about early music vocal and instrumental performance practice. To start with the positive: Le Sfera Armonioso clearly takes the period instrument issue seriously, to the extent that for this project they commissioned two new trumpets from Graham Nicholson, who also plays on the recording. They are replicas of the c1700 William Bull silver trumpet, owned by Purcell’s principal trumpeter, John Shore and housed in the Museum of Warwick. These trumpets have no finger holes, relying solely on the players’ lips to produce the notes, with the inevitable distinctive tunings, obvious from the start with the opening Symphony for trumpets and violins from Purcell’s History of Dioclesian. More information about the trumpets, and some extracts from the recording can be found here.  Continue reading →

A Fancy: Fantasy on English Airs & Tune

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

A Fancy: Fantasy on English Airs & Tune
Rachel Redmond, Le Caravansérail, Bertrand Cuiller
Harmonia Mundi. HMM 902296. 66’04

Rachel Redmond - A Fancy: Fantasy on English Airs & Tunes

This recording was released in September 2017, but I have only become aware of it, having heard a concert performance during the 2019 Tage Alter Musik Regensburg (reviewed here). As well as being a musically outstanding recording, with excellent singing from soprano Rachel Redmond and playing from Le Caravansérail, directed by Bertrand Cuiller, this is an intelligent way of presenting the music of the English Baroque era. Much of the music of the post-Restoration period (from the mid-17th century) was written for the theatre, where plays included lots of music to set the scene and provide interludes. The resulting pieces are often short, and can be difficult to programme into a concert setting. In this recording, Le Caravansérail has concocted what is, in effect, a five-act mini-opera taking samples of music for the theatre by composers such as Matthew Locke, Henry Purcell, John Blow to make a coherent and well-balanced whole. Continue reading →

Sweeter than Roses: Songs by Henry Purcell

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Sweeter than Roses
Songs by Henry Purcell
Anna Dennis, soprano
Sounds Baroque, Julian Perkins
Resonus Classics RES10235.. 67’33

Henry Purcell is one of the greatest composers of English vocal music, with his ability to tease out the depths of meaning in mere words through his sensitive melodic and harmonic skills. Publisher Henry Playford’s preface to Orpheus Britannicus sums this talent up perfectly when he describes Purcell’s “extraordinary Talent in all sorts of Musick is sufficiently known, but he was especially admir’d for the Vocal, having a peculiar Genius to express the energy of English Words, whereby he mov’d the Passions of all his Auditors“. Another commentator, Henry Hall, organist of Hereford Cathedral, describes this well in his prefatory poem to Orpheus Britannicus when he mentions “Each syllable first weigh’d, or short, or long, / That it might too be Sense, as well as Song”. These contemporary descriptions of Purcell’s skill at setting words to music are at the heart of this recording, with Bruce Wood’s and Julian Perkin’s excellent programme notes (which includes the above quotes) giving specific examples of Purcell’s art as well as setting Purcell’s so-very-English music in the context of the musical style of the rest of Europe that so clearly influenced him. Continue reading →

LPO Isle of Noises: Handel & Purcell

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Isle of Noises
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The Schütz Choir, Sir Roger Norrington
Royal Festival Hall, 30 January 2019

Handel: Suites from The Water Music 
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas

The London Philharmonic Orchestra opened their year-long series Isle of Noises (a celebration of British music) with a concert that, by all the normal conventions of concert programming over the past 50 years or so, shouldn’t have happened. Since the early music period-instrument revolution, and as the pioneering work of the early period specialists took root, most traditional orchestras took fright and stopped performing any music from Mozart or before. Gone were the days of a Mozart concerto opening a concert that would finish with Mahler. In recent years, some of those same early music specialists have enthused modern instrument players and orchestras, by far the most prominent being Sir Roger Norrington, perhaps most notably for his work with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Continue reading →

Purcell: King Arthur

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: King Arthur
Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
Alpha Classics. Alpha 430. 2CDs 57’41+40’18

It is often assumed that English opera started with Handel, and missed out on the entire 17th-century development of opera. This is probably due to that very English concept of semi-opera, with musical bits and bobs inserted into a play, with the music based around the supporting cast, rather than the key personnel.  Although, some of the famous bits from Purcell are known but, apart from Dido and Aeneas, we rarely hear the complete music of The Fairy Queen or King Arther. Rarer still is a performance that includes the spoken text of the plays in which the music was performed. I remember the bemused looks on Glyndebourne faces as their Fairy Queen opened with around 45 minutes of spoken text. This outstanding recording, from the distinguished Belgian consort Vox Luminis and their director Lionel Meunier will help to bring more attention to the world of 17th-century English semi-opera. Musically, King Arthur is gorgeous, Dryden’s text creating several moments for Purcell to weave his magic with. Continue reading →

Baroque at the Edge

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Baroque at the Edge
Saint James, Clerkenwell, St Luke’s Old Street
Saturday 6 January 2019

Imagine.jpg

With a headline of “Imagine if Bach was a jazzman, Purcell a folk-fiddler, or Monteverdi a minimalist…”, the second annual Baroque at the Edge festival made a fitting opening to the 2019 London musical calendar. Founded in 2018 by Lindsay Kemp and Lucy Bending, the team behind the London Festival of Baroque Music and the earlier Lufthansa Festival, the festival invites musicians with a classical, jazz, or folk background to “take the music of the Baroque and see where it leads them” with the promise of “No rules, no programme notes, no lectures: all you need to know is how to listen”. The festival was spread over a three day weekend, with most of the events taking place on Saturday, 6 January, after a Friday night piano recital and before a Sunday family folksinging workshop and linked lunchtime concert. Continue reading →

Purcell: The Fairy Queen

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Purcell: The Fairy Queen
Gabrieli Consort and Players, Paul McCreesh
St John’s, Smith Square. 1 November 2018

The Gabrieli Consort and Players could probably perform The Fairy Queen in their sleep, such is their experience of Purcell’s music, and this particular work, over many years. They have performed it at the BBC Proms, the Barbican, the Spitalfields Festival and many other venues around the world. They now plan to record it, along with King Arthur, early in the New Year, with the same forces as appeared in this St John’s, Smith Square performance. Their crowdfunding campaign page can be found here.

One of the continuing successes of the Gabrieli’s and their director Paul McCreesh is their ability to reinvent themselves and to continually question and push boundaries in their approach to their music making. For this particular recording (and this concert) they stress that “Gabrieli also brings a forensic understanding of contemporaneous performance techniques to this repertoire, including a new bow hold for string players which transforms articulation and influences tempi; wind instruments using more basic, coarser reeds, for a more martial sound; and natural trumpets performing on instruments without holes, playing entirely through the adjustment of embouchure – a high wire act!“. This was also the premiere of a new performing edition, prepared by McCreesh and Christopher Suckling, their principal bass violinist. It was performed at the low ‘French’ pitch of 392Hz and the violins played using French bow holds.  If this suggests an academic approach to music making, the experience of this concert proved to be anything but. It was a compelling and exuberant performance, semi-staged, albeit with only one ‘prop’ – in the shape of an enormous bleached-white wig for Mopsa, aka Charles Daniels. Continue reading →

Academy of Ancient Music: Dido and Aeneas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Dido and Aeneas
Academy of Ancient Music, Richard Egarr, Thomas Guthrie
The Barbican, 2 October 2018

For anybody who was not already familiar with the story of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, the Academy of Ancient Music’s semi-staged performance (directed by Thomas Guthrie) at The Barbican opened with something of a plot-spoiler. The first half was a 40-minute exploration of the funeral rites of the dead Dido, albeit a couple of hours or more before she was ‘laid in earth’. Actually, laid in earth she wasn’t, instead lying on a funeral catafalque over which Belinda, Aeneas and assorted mourners (the AAM chorus, who opened the show with some rhythmic drum bashing) acted out their reaction to her death as they remembered her. And when I write ‘she’ in fact it was a half-size puppet of the upper half of Dido who represented her throughout the evening. The full panoply of puppets came to the fore in the second half performance of Dido and Aeneas itself where the entire cast of soloists and chorus sported puppets – torsos for Dido and Aeneas, heads and gauze cloths for the rest. Continue reading →

BBC Prom 26: Serpent and Fire

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Serpent and Fire
Il Giardino Armonico, Anna Prohaska
Royal Albert Hall. 2 August 2018 

Serpent and Fire is probably a better concert title that ‘Two Suicidal African Queens’, but Anna Prohaska’s exploration of the musical characters of Dido and Cleopatra certainly delved the emotional issues that caused both Queen’s demise. Despite her plea to ‘forget my fate’, Dido’s end is etched in all music-lovers minds, and it closed this late-night BBC Prom. Purcell’s Ah! Belinda providing the opening, introducing the Anna Prohaska’s beautifully clear and pure voice, and her use of the gentlest of vocal inflexions, quite correctly, as an ornament, for which I will readily forgive her the occasional tendency to slightly slur notes together. She later joined the very rare catalogue of early music singers who can produce a proper trill, rather than just relying on vibrato. The curious pauses in Ah! Belinda were the first of a number of directorial oddities provided by conductor Giovanni Antonini.

Anna Prohaska.jpg

Continue reading →

Purcell and Michael Nyman

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Purcell & Michael Nyman
Iestyn Davies & Fretwork
Milton Court, 28 May 2018

Michael Nyman: No Time in Eternity
Purcell: Two Fantazies in four parts; Music for a While
Michael Nyman: Music after a While (world premiere)
Purcell: An Evening Hymn
Michael Nyman: Balancing the Books; The Diary of Anne Frank: If; Why
Purcell; Fantazy in four parts; Fantazy upon one note
Michael Nyman: Self-laudatory hymn of Inanna and her omnipotence

Many early music period instrument groups play and commission contemporary works, but the viol consort Fretwork is one of the most active in this field, with over 40 commissions over their 32-year life. Their latest commission is from Michael Nyman with Music after a While, an instrumental response to Purcell’s Music for a While, and given it’s world premiere during this concert. Early music, and particularly the compositions of Purcell, have been life-long influences on Nyman, as reflected for example, in his Purcell-inspired score for the film The Draughtsman’s Contract. A student of Thurston Dart, Nyman’s early career including editing Purcell and Handel, and his performing band combined period and modern instruments. He has worked many times before with Fretwork. Continue reading →

Ceruleo: Paradise Lost

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Ceruleo: Paradise Lost
Guildhall Artist Fellowship Recital
Music Hall, Guildhall School of Music and Drama. 10 July 2017

The five-strong group Ceruleo (two sopranos, cello, theorbo, and harpsichord) got together at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2014. They have just completed a one year Artist Fellowship there, the first time a this has been awarded to a group. During their year, they gave several performances of their programme ‘Deplorable Fire’ commemorating the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London, including a live performance on BBC Radio 3. They presented their Paradise Lost programme, based on John Milton’s poem (published 350 years ago in 1667) as their final recital of their Fellowship year. The music was interspersed by extracts from Paradise Lost. Continue reading →

SJSS: Holy Week Festival

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Siglo de Oro & New London Singers
St John’s, Smith Square: Holy Week Festival. 15 April 2017

WP_20170415_12_49_34_Pro (2).jpgThe St John’s, Smith Square Holy Week Festival (also reviewed here and here) concluded with a vocal workshop and lunchtime concert with Siglo de Oro and an evening concert from the New London Singers. The morning workshop was led by Patrick Allies, director of Siglo de Oro, and focussed on Bach’s motet Jesu meine freude, giving useful insights into the structure, text and musical contents of this most complex piece. Siglo de Oro’s lunchtime concert sandwiched this piece between two shorter meditative pieces by Purcell Hear my Prayer, and Remember not, Lord, our offences, concluding with Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater a 10.  Continue reading →

O Sing unto the Lord

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

O Sing unto the Lord
Sacred music by Henry Purcell
Saint Thomas Choir, New York, Concert Royal, John Scott
Resonus RES10184. 54’03

O sing unto the Lord, Z44; Remember not, Lord, Z50; Jehova, quam multi sunt hostes mei, Z135; Evening Hymn, Z193; O God, thou art my God, Z35; Morning Hymn, Z198; I was glad, Z19; Hear my prayer, O Lord, Z15; Voluntary in G major, Z720; Te Deum in D major, Z232.

Following on from their recent issues of Bach and Rachmaninoff, Resonus continue their series of recordings from the Saint Thomas Choir, New York, under their conductor, the late John Scott, with this release of a 2010 recording of Purcell. The well-balanced programme includes major works for choir and orchestra, such as the substantial opening O sing unto the Lord, as well as more intimate pieces such as the Morning and Evening Hymns, here separated by the early anthem O God, thou art my God with its famous Hallelujah, later turned into the hymn Westminster Abbey. This amply demonstrated the extraordinary range of Purcell’s musical style and his harmonic inventiveness. Continue reading →

Love & Lust

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Love & Lust
Elizabeth Hungerford, soprano, Andrew Arceci, viola da gamba
No record label noted. Ref: 8 89211 78745. 56’42

All in a Garden Green (Anonymous – 16th century)
She Loves It Well (Tobias Hume – 1579-1645)
Chi passa per ‘sta strada (Filippo Azzaiolo – 1530/40-1569)
Touch Me Lightly (Tobias Hume – 1579-1645)
Amarilli mia bella (Giulio Romolo Caccini – 1551-1618)
Amarilli Variations (Modo 2, 3, And 4) (Jacob Van Eyck- 1590-1657)
Joy to the Person of My Love (Anonymous – 17th century)
Canzonetta Spirituale sopra alla nanna (Tarquinio Merula – 1594/95-1665)
Death (Tobias Hume – 1579-1645)
Life (Tobias Hume – 1579-1645)
Prelude (E Minor) – (Christopher Simpson – 1602/06-1669)
I Attempt from Love’s Sickness (Henry Purcell – 1659-1695)
Beauty, Since You so Much Desire (Thomas Campion – 1567-1620)
Tobacco (Tobias Hume – 1579-1645)
1Quel sguardo sdegnosetto (Claudio Monteverdi – 1567-1643)

Love and LustThis CD was recorded in 2013 and appears to have been available as a download, but was issued as a CD in 2014 or 15. It appears to be self-produced, as there is no record label mentioned, although the bar code number listed above is searchable. The CD liner notes give translations of the texts, but not strictly in the order of the tracks. No track or total timings are given, which might limit its use for broadcasters. There is a brief note about the two performers, but no other information about the programme or the background to the pieces. But there is a full page listing of some 150 people who “the artists wish to thank” – presumably the result of a crowdfunding campaign.

All that merely reflects that performers have to start somewhere, and self-producing and self-promoting is pretty much standard nowadays. What is important is what you get if you can get hold of this CD. And that is a far more professional offering Continue reading →

James Gilchrist Directs: Bach and Purcell

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

James Gilchrist Directs: Bach and Purcell
Academy of Ancient Music
James Gilchrist, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Rachel Brown
Milton Court, 19 October 2016

The Academy of Ancient Music’s 2016-17 London and Cambridge concert series features two occasions when guest directors are being invited to plan programmes and direct the orchestra. The first of these was with the tenor, James Gilchrist. Renowned as a Bach performer (most notably in the role of Evangelist in the Passions) Gilchrist has been a regular soloist with the AAM. After a musical grounding as a boy chorister at New College, Oxford and a choral scholarship at King’s College, Cambridge, Gilchrist helped to pay his way through the rest of his medical training by singing in professional choirs such as The Sixteen, Tallis scholars and Cardinall’s Musick. He moved from his earlier career as a doctor to become a full-time musician twenty years ago.

On this occasion, the word ‘curator’ rather than ‘director’ is more appropriate. Gilchrist selected the vocal works from Purcell and the two Bach cantatas, handing over to the AAM’s leader, violinist Pavlo Beznosiuk, to select Continue reading →

Fitzwilliam & Friends: Purcell + Pergolesi +

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ Leave a comment

Fitzwilliam & Friends: Purcell + Pergolesi +
Fitzwilliam String Quartet, Julia Doyle, Clare Wilkinson
Kings Place. 29 September 2016

Music by Purcell, Marcus Barcham Stevens, Jackson Hill, Rachel Stott, and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

Image result for julia doyle sopranoKings Place’s 2016 ‘Baroque Unwrapped’ series continued with a fascinating combination of musical styles performed by the period instrument Fitzwilliam String Quartet together with their ‘Friends’, soprano Julia Doyle (pictured) and mezzo Clare Wilkinson, two of the finest singers around, with Laurence Cummings, harpsichord and organ. They opened collectively with three groups of pieces selected from Purcell’s Fairy Queen, King Arthur, and Dido and Aeneas. Julia Doyle and Clare Wilkinson were outstanding soloists in piece such as If Love’s a Sweet Passion’, The Plaint, Fairest Isle and Dido’s Lament. I was particularly impressed with Julia Doyle’s beautiful singing and her excellent use of ornaments: she is one of the few singers who can manage a proper trill, rather than just relying on vibrato.

With the departure of the ‘friends’, the Fitzwilliam Quartet continued with Purcell’s Fantazia 7 followed by three of the specially commissioned Continue reading →