Henry PURCELL (1659-1695)
Purcell’s Revenge; Sweeter than Roses?
Moonlight on the Green by James Oswald / Scotch Tune (Purcell, Amphitryon,
Z572) [2:14]
There’s not a swain on the plain (Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, Z 587),
arr. Olivia Chaney [4:21]
Rondeau (Abdelazer, Z570) [1:48]
An Evening Hymn, Z193, arr. Ana Silvera [3:56]
Fantazia in four parts, No. 11 in G, Z742 [2:59]
A New Scotch Tune, Z655: Peggie I must love thee (Balcarres Lute Book)
[2:12]
Sweeter than roses (Pausanias, Z585), arr. David McGuinness [3:25]
First Music: Hornpipe (The Fairy Queen, Z629) [1:01]
Fairest isle (King Arthur, Z628) [3:44]
Old Sir Simon the King (The Division Violin / Second Part of Musick’s
Hand-maid) [3:54]
Jigg (Second Part of Musick’s Hand-maid) [0:57]
One charming night (The Fairy Queen) [3:42]
Close thine eyes, Z184, Jigg (Abdelazer) [3:06]
Music for a while (Oedipus, Z583) [3:42]
Cassiopeia - Olivia Chaney [4:11]
Halos - Ana Silvera [3:43]
The Plaint (The Fairy Queen) [6:01]
What shall I do to show how much I love her (Dioclesian, Z627) and
variations by James Oswald, arr. David McGuinness [3:48]
Aminta one night had occasion to piss, Z430, arr. David McGuinness
[2:22]
Hornpipe on a Ground (The Married Beau, Z603) [3:00]
Concerto Caledonia/David McGuinnessl Performers:
rec. 2013, Britten Studio, Snape, UK
Texts included
DELPHIAN DCD34161 [66:04]
This is a playful and occasionally exasperating disc from Concerto
Caledonia under David McGuinness. Straight-ahead, no-nonsense Purcellians
will be aghast at some of the things inflicted on their hero whilst the more
broad-minded may well welcome the serious and indeed funnier moments -
whilst also privately wondering why it all doesn’t work rather better than
it does.
Given their folk basis the ensemble could hardly be expected to take an
Academy of Ancient Music approach and the infusion of lyra d’amore,
hurdy-gurdy, Nyckelharpa and harmonica will give you some idea of the
sound-world explored by the group.
There’s not a swain on the plain
with its vocal folk ethos and ensuing expansive instrumental shows how the
group wants to marry the Purcellian idiom to its own sonically inclusive one
but it can be a dangerous business.
An Evening Hymn is de-ground
bassed, as it were, and turned, kicking and screaming, into a winsome
ballad, with Ana Silvera’s vowels not sounding especially English. It
strikes me, then, as strange that, having established their credentials here
in a kind of folk-baroque concept album, they should then decide to invite a
proper singer of such music, James Bowman, to join them in a couple of
numbers. As we can hear in
Sweeter than Roses his voice is now
well, well past its best and his musicality, never to be doubted, is little
compensation. Is the use of Bowman to offer ‘real’ Purcell or to acquire
some kind of legitimacy for the project? I’m undecided.
Fairest Isle is folked, much as the Classics were Jazzed in the
1930s, or
Loch Lomond swung but whilst the latter two worked, this
doesn’t. It sounds limp. Still, if you’ve yet to encounter a harmonica over
hurdy-gurdy then listen to the Jigg.
One Charming Night however
takes us to the verge of Rock chamber opera – electric guitar, piano, and
then quite a melancholy folkloric dénouement with much rusticity in the
vocalising.
I’ve enjoyed a couple of this ensemble’s discs before and I appreciate
that as suppliers of so-called Nu-Folk (what’s wrong with ‘New Folk’?) they
plough their own furrow. Some things are effective, especially that nexus
between the more Arcadian aspects of Purcell’s writing and the rural-folk
inspirations on which the ensemble draw. But too much of the singing also
draws upon the clichés of the genre and I don’t necessarily mean, for
instance, the elongated vowels that turn the word ‘safe’ into
‘sayyyyyfe’.
The documentation is excellent and there are some splendid photographs.
Most of the performances are live but a couple come from the studio. Sample
firrrrst.
Jonathan Woolf
