Purcell's Shakespeare
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Henry Purcell
Label: Philips
Magazine Review Date: 2/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 446 218-2PH
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Timon of Athens |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Andrew King, Tenor Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Julia Gooding, Soprano Libby Crabtree, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Nicholas Hurndall Smith, Tenor Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Simon Grant, Bass William Purefoy, Alto |
| If music be the food of love |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Henry Purcell, Composer Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: Wayward sisters |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: Harm's our delight |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: The Queen of Carthage |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: Ho, ho, ho |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: Ruin'd ere the set of sun? |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: But ere we this perform |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: In our deep vaulted cell |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| Dido and Aeneas, Movement: Echo Dance of the Furies |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Catherine King, Mezzo soprano Chorus Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone Teresa Shaw, Mezzo soprano |
| (The) Tempest, Movement: Dear pretty youth |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Henry Purcell, Composer Julia Gooding, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor |
| (The) History of King Richard II |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Helen Groves, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: See, even Night herself is here |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: I am come to lock all fast |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: One charming night |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Hush, no more |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Dance of the followers of Night |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Symphony |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
| (The) Fairy Queen, Movement: Now the night is chased away |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Chorus Christopher Robson, Alto Helen Parker, Soprano Henry Purcell, Composer Libby Crabtree, Soprano Meredith Hall, Soprano Musicians of the Globe Philip Pickett, Conductor Roderick Williams, Baritone |
Author:
The link between Shakespeare and Purcell is several times removed from the oft-purported and erroneous conception that England’s Orpheus was forever setting the Bard to music. Whilst Shakespeare’s plays enjoyed revivals, such Restoration drama and ‘opera’ (for which Purcell provided inspirational parentheses) unashamedly gutted the interior and left the facade. For one, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is but a distant blood relation of The Fairy Queen; the question of whether Purcell restores Shakespearian shadows with his puckish instrumental music is an agreeable, if a decidedly romantic idea. Just to rub it in, not even Purcell’s famous If music be the food of love is original Shakespeare, rather – after the first line – the verse of Colonel Henry Heveningham. Even so, few would dissent from the claim that Purcell is “Our musical Shakespeare”, if only for his extraordinarily sympathetic response to verse, arguably as great as any English composer’s subsequent efforts.
For the purposes of the Musicians of the Globe, Purcell’s professional contact with the Shakespearian context is the primeraison d’etre here, not the process of selecting works whose characterization recalls Shakespeare in its glorious acuity: if Purcell is “Our musical Shakespeare”, then surely “Saul and The Witch of Endor”, with its intensely heart-rending and concentrated narrative, is a rather less specious spiritual heir of Shakespeare’s than Act 2 scene 1 of Dido and Aeneas, whose inclusion seems to rest on having ‘punctuated’ an adaptation of Measure for Measure (though doubtless one can find strong Shakespearian allusions too)? For all that, The Witches Scene is where this recording brutally grabs the attention: with four slide-trumpets and drum in attendance, and a bass for the Sorceress (as it may have been performed in Lincoln’s Inn Field Theatre in 1700), this is a striking interpretation. Roderick Williams’s decisive and portentous singing complements an unusually resplendent palette, a version probably last heard eight years ago in the last, sadly now-defunct, Early English Opera Festival. Other highlights include some fine solo singing in the mouth-watering Act 2 Masque of The Fairy Queen, delectably paced by Pickett, and some impressive instrumental contributions throughout. The inspiration for this project – or how it has been interpreted – may have delimited it in one sense, but the best moments here are atmospheric in a theatrical manner of which the Bard would have been proud.
JF-A
For the purposes of the Musicians of the Globe, Purcell’s professional contact with the Shakespearian context is the prime
Purcell's Shakespeare
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