The Purcell Thread

Started by dtwilbanks, September 18, 2007, 06:51:44 AM

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dtwilbanks

Quote from: Shrunk on September 19, 2007, 05:59:44 AM


Dido & Aeneas:  Dame Janet Baker, ECO, Anthony Lewis

I generally prefer my early music HIP.  However, a performance like this blows away my reservations.

Have you heard other recordings of Dido? How does this compare?

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Harry on September 19, 2007, 06:01:58 AM
I would take to much space for all the images I could post, suffice it to say that most recordings so far posted are excellent. But since you had troubles with the voices on the Messiah recording, that rules my recommendations almost out, for in the line of those voices I buy my Purcell, but one of them should be in your collection and that is this one, never mind the stories about King, this is a absolute must for Purcell fans.

11 discs. Oh my.

Harry

Quote from: dtwilbanks on September 19, 2007, 06:04:37 AM
11 discs. Oh my.

O, common the price is within reason, I payed about 50 euro's for it, and you get a treasure back for it, for I doubt that this box when sold out, will be reprinted, in the light of the scandal about King.

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Harry on September 19, 2007, 06:08:50 AM
O, common the price is within reason, I payed about 50 euro's for it, and you get a treasure back for it, for I doubt that this box when sold out, will be reprinted, in the light of the scandal about King.

I'll have to look into this scandal.

dtwilbanks


Harry

Quote from: dtwilbanks on September 19, 2007, 06:12:00 AM
Yikes!

Seperate the man from what he has been convicted for, from the musician, he is a eminent scholar, and without him there would not have been this fabulous recording.

Harry

Okay back on track, some Purcell recommendations.

Harry Collier

1. The Fantasias for viol consort (Phantasm)
2. Ode for St Cecilia's Day: Hail bright Cecilia (King)
3. Ode for St Cecilia's Day: Welcome to all the Pleasures (King)
4. Ode: Come ye sons of Art (Leonhardt)
5. Ode: Now does the Glorious Day (Leonhardt)
6. Dido & Aeneas (Haim)

Glorious music!

Harry

His theatre music is awesome too.

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Harry on September 19, 2007, 06:19:12 AM
His theatre music is awesome too.
Yeah, I saw that set last night on iTunes. How does it compare to the Holman (besides having more music)?

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Harry Collier on September 19, 2007, 06:18:17 AM
1. The Fantasias for viol consort (Phantasm)
2. Ode for St Cecilia's Day: Hail bright Cecilia (King)
3. Ode for St Cecilia's Day: Welcome to all the Pleasures (King)
4. Ode: Come ye sons of Art (Leonhardt)
5. Ode: Now does the Glorious Day (Leonhardt)
6. Dido & Aeneas (Haim)

Glorious music!


Thanks, Harry!

Harry

#31
Quote from: dtwilbanks on September 19, 2007, 06:21:12 AM
Yeah, I saw that set last night on iTunes. How does it compare to the Holman (besides having more music)?

They are on equal footing really, both are good. :)

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Harry on September 19, 2007, 06:28:41 AM
They are on equal footing really, both are good.
Same voices as on the Messiah, so beware! :)


Why do you keep mentioning Messiah? I don't know what you're referring to. Perhaps you have me mixed up with another board member.

Harry

Sorry mixed you up with another David, that disliked the voices of Hogwoods Messiah. :-[

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Harry on September 19, 2007, 06:38:25 AM
Sorry mixed you up with another David, that disliked the voices of Hogwoods Messiah. :-[

No problem.

Shrunk

Quote from: dtwilbanks on September 19, 2007, 06:02:05 AM
Have you heard other recordings of Dido? How does this compare?

I haven't  (Although this thread will surely help me rectify that situation!).  I'm just very taken with Dame Janet's singing on this disc.

E d o

Another vote for the viol fantasias from Phantasm. Sadly it's OOP though. Fretwork is a good alternative.
I'm also quite pleased with Herreweghe's Funeral Sentences.

dirkronk

Quote from: Shrunk on September 19, 2007, 07:05:33 AM
I haven't  (Although this thread will surely help me rectify that situation!).  I'm just very taken with Dame Janet's singing on this disc.

I concur. Inspired by this thread, I went to the local branch library at lunchtime and found a copy of this CD, which I'm listening to as I type. HIP aficionados will surely cringe at the 1961 approach of the instrument playing, even though the forces are of chamber group size, but the recording is excellent and Baker is in beautiful vocal form here. I'll be sure to track down some more recent recorded examples of Purcell, of course, but for now this provides a lovely experience. (From my point of view, anything from the younger days of Janet Baker, Elly Ameling or Frederica von Stade--to name three particular favorites--is an unalloyed aural treat.)

Cheers,

Dirk

dtwilbanks

Quote from: dirkronk on September 19, 2007, 01:07:13 PM
Inspired by this thread, I went to the local branch library at lunchtime and found a copy of this CD, which I'm listening to as I type. HIP aficionados will surely cringe at the 1961 approach of the instrument playing, even though the forces are of chamber group size, but the recording is excellent and Baker is in beautiful vocal form here. I'll be sure to track down some more recent recorded examples of Purcell, of course, but for now this provides a lovely experience. (From my point of view, anything from the younger days of Janet Baker, Elly Ameling or Frederica von Stade--to name three particular favorites--is an unalloyed aural treat.)

Purcellmania is spreading!!!  ;D

dtwilbanks


Born in 1659, Henry Purcell was the finest and most original composer of his day. Though he was to live a very short life (he died in 1695) he was able to enjoy and make full use of the renewed flowering of music after the Restoration of the Monarchy.
As the son of a musician at Court, a chorister at the Chapel Royal, and the holder of continuing royal appointments until his death, Purcell worked in Westminster for three different Kings over twenty-five years.

In the Chapel Royal young Purcell studied with Dr. John Blow. Dr. Burney, the eighteenth century historian, is amusingly skeptical on this point: "..... he had a few lessons from Dr. Blow, which were sufficient to cancel all the instructions he had received from other masters, and to occasion the boast inscribed on the tomb-stone of Blow, that he had been 'Master to the famous Mr. Henry Purcell'." Legend has it that when, in 1679, Purcell succeeded Dr. Blow as organist of Westminster Abbey, the elder musician stepped aside in recognition of the greater genius, and it is true that on Purcell's death in 1695 Blow returned to the post, and would write a noble Ode on the Death of Purcell.

In addition to his royal duties Purcell also devoted much of his talent to writing operas, or rather musical dramas, and incidental stage music; but he would also write chamber music in the form of harpsichord suites and trio sonatas, and became involved with the growing London public concert scene. Indeed one of the most important musical developments in Restoration London was the gradual establishment of regular public concerts. Even the few meetings that began as private concerns were eventually prevailed upon to admit the general public, such as the group that gave concerts in the Castle Tavern. Whereas other organizations charged only a shilling, their admittance fee was more than twice that sum, and before long they had enough capital to equip a music room in York Buildings.

By the time Henry Purcell began to attend such concerts in the 1670s there were many highly skilled players of the violin, cello, and flute, as well as exponents of the (for London) relatively new art of playing continuo instruments, the most usual being the organ and the harpsichord. In 1683 a group of gentlemen amateurs, and professional musicians started a "Musical Society" in London to celebrate the "Festival of St. Cecilia, a great patroness of music" which any music-lover so desirous may still celebrate yearly on November 22nd. They asked Henry Purcell, then only 24, to be the first to write an Ode for their festivals; Purcell was to compose two more such Odes for the Society.

The writing of incidental theater music seems not to have been regarded by Purcell as embarrassing or beneath his dignity as Organist of Westminster Abbey. He was in the very midst of a tradition that not only permitted but actually encouraged well-known church musicians to provide lighter music for the theatre and opera, and this was an accepted practice in the great continental cities as well as in London. Most of Purcell's theatre music was written between 1690 and 1695 (the year of his death), and within that relatively brief period he supplied music for more than forty plays. Much of the instrumental music was published in 1697, when the composer's widow compiled A Collection of Ayres, Compos'd for the Theatre, and upon Other Occasions. This body of music, viewed as a whole, shows that Purcell gave to the theatre some of his happiest melodic inspirations, distributed among solemn overtures, cheerful or pathetic airs, and delightful dances of every imaginable kind.

There is hardly a department of music, as known in his day, to which Purcell did not contribute with true distinction. His anthems were long since accorded their place in the great music of the church; there are enough fine orchestral movements in his works for the theatre to establish him in this field; his fantasies and sonatas entitle him to honor in the history of chamber music; his keyboard works, if less significant in themselves, hold their place in the repertory; his one true opera. Dido and Aeneas, is an enduring masterpiece, and his other dramatic works (sometimes called operas) are full of musical riches. And, most especially, Purcell's songs themselves would be sufficient to insure his immortality. His sensitivity to his texts has been matched by few masters in musical history; when he had worthy poetry to set, he could hardly fail to produce a masterpiece.