By no means all of Purcell’s mesmeric devotional songs found their way into Henry Playford’s Harmonia Sacra of 1688 and 1693 but enough to indicate that for all their specialized literariness, metaphysical images and contemplative intimacy, there was a public who would want them. Not unlike the two sets of trio sonatas written in the early 1680s, Purcell had to make a choice of which ones to include for publication (in the case of the sonatas, the ones he discarded in 1683 had to wait until after his death to reach the shelves). What criteria he used in choosing his songs it is impossible to know; how could he possibly not have included In guilty night? Perhaps this hybrid scena was just too personal and arcane for public consumption. Where Paul McCreesh in his recent disc used the name of the publication in the broadest sense to describe Purcell’s sacred songs (extending to the Funeral Sentences), Jill Feldman and Davitt Moroney present only those 11 works which Playford published. Interspersing the complete organ music is an imaginative way of killing two birds with one stone and making nearly 70 minutes pass without feeling one has had too much of a good thing.
Jill Feldman’s last solo Purcell disc for Arcana (“Ayres and Songs from Orpheus Britannicus”, 1/93) struck me as rather relentless in its darkly vowelled vocal delivery, for all its expressive fervour and intelligent characterization. What did not work for Fairest isle has a better chance with these penitential offerings. There is a great nobility about Thou wakeful shepherd (“A Morning Hymn”) and Feldman’s usual sensitivity to textual nuance, fortified by her fruity brooding tone, is used to fine effect in The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation. As for Lord, what is man? and With sick and famish’d eyes, I am drawn to the more varied accounts by Charles Daniels for McCreesh and Susan Gritton’s near obsessive accounts for King, which also leave a rather more lasting impression. Feldman is assisted by Moroney’s descriptive and imaginative accompaniments; the sobriety of the organ’s sound throughout proves enlightening, pitched alongside such vivid and excitable declamation. Moroney performs on a colourful instrument from Guimiliau, Brittany. His solo items are logical and meticulous though the Double Voluntary, Z719, is a touch tame. This recording, therefore, has undoubted merits but I cannot pretend that Feldman is a Purcell singer who I find consistently riveting. Yet, in small doses, her intensity can be compelling to say the least and the organ accompaniments are often a revelation.'