Album lore

This 2018 Alpha Classics release collects a suite of Henry Purcell’s vocal and instrumental pieces, performed by countertenor Tim Mead alongside Les Musiciens De Saint-Julien under François Lazarevitch’s direction. The twenty tracks span Purcell’s oeuvre, including selections from the semi-opera King Arthur (Z.628) such as “What Power Art Thou,” as well as birthday odes, cantatas, and dance movements like minuets, hornpipes, and jigs. The program traverses Purcell’s deft melding of Baroque and Renaissance forms, with a particular emphasis on his deft setting of English text and dance rhythms.Recorded with period instruments and historically informed technique, this collection foregrounds the clarity and ornamentation characteristic of late 17th-century English court music. The inclusion of lesser-known works like The Old Bachelor hornpipe (Z.607) and the Suite for Strings in G Major (Z.770) offers a fuller view of Purcell’s idiom beyond his more familiar operatic and choral output. This artifact resonates within the early music canon as a refined document of Purcell’s compositional breadth, suited for collectors attuned to Baroque vocal chamber repertoire.

Album lore

This 2018 Alpha Classics release collects a suite of Henry Purcell’s vocal and instrumental pieces, performed by countertenor Tim Mead alongside Les Musiciens De Saint-Julien under François Lazarevitch’s direction. The twenty tracks span Purcell’s oeuvre, including selections from the semi-opera King Arthur (Z.628) such as “What Power Art Thou,” as well as birthday odes, cantatas, and dance movements like minuets, hornpipes, and jigs. The program traverses Purcell’s deft melding of Baroque and Renaissance forms, with a particular emphasis on his deft setting of English text and dance rhythms.Recorded with period instruments and historically informed technique, this collection foregrounds the clarity and ornamentation characteristic of late 17th-century English court music. The inclusion of lesser-known works like The Old Bachelor hornpipe (Z.607) and the Suite for Strings in G Major (Z.770) offers a fuller view of Purcell’s idiom beyond his more familiar operatic and choral output. This artifact resonates within the early music canon as a refined document of Purcell’s compositional breadth, suited for collectors attuned to Baroque vocal chamber repertoire.