Classical Kirkby
Kirkby goes back to her scholarly roots with truly delightful results
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Alfonso II Ferrabosco, Thomas Campion, William Boyce, John Eccles, Nicholas Lanier, John Wilson, John Blow, Maurice Greene, Henry Lawes, John Weldon
Genre:
Vocal
Label: BIS
Magazine Review Date: 3/2003
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 54
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: BIS-CD1435
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Ayres and Dialogues, Movement: Legousin hai gunaikes (Anacreon) |
Henry Lawes, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Henry Lawes, Composer |
Ayres and Dialogues, Movement: Away, Away, Anacreon |
Henry Lawes, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Henry Lawes, Composer |
Ayres and Dialogues, Movement: Anacreon's Ode, call'd The Lute (orig Greek) |
Henry Lawes, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Henry Lawes, Composer |
Ayres and Dialogues, Movement: Anacreon's Ode (English version) |
Henry Lawes, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Henry Lawes, Composer |
Sappho to the Goddess of Love |
John Blow, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano John Blow, Composer |
Horace's Odes, Movement: Diffugere nives (Odes IV, 7) |
John Wilson, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano John Wilson, Composer |
When to her lute Corrinna sings |
Thomas Campion, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Thomas Campion, Composer |
Corinna now you'r young and gay |
John Eccles, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano John Eccles, Composer |
Hero's complaint to Leander |
Nicholas Lanier, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Nicholas Lanier, Composer |
So beauty on the waters stood |
Alfonso II Ferrabosco, Composer
Alfonso II Ferrabosco, Composer Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano |
Sappho to the Goddess of Beauty |
John Blow, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano John Blow, Composer |
Horace's Odes, Movement: Integer vitae (Odes I, 22) |
John Wilson, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano John Wilson, Composer |
Orpheus with his lute |
Maurice Greene, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Maurice Greene, Composer |
Orpheus's Hymn |
Henry Lawes, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Henry Lawes, Composer |
Stop, O ye waves |
John Weldon, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano John Weldon, Composer |
Orpheus and Euridice |
William Boyce, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano William Boyce, Composer |
Ayres and Dialogues |
Henry Lawes, Composer
Anthony Rooley, Lute Emma Kirkby, Soprano Henry Lawes, Composer |
Author: Lindsay Kemp
Perhaps the rarest items are those setting words by classical poets themselves: two of Anacreon’s poems appear in their original Greek, set by Henry Lawes (we also get his parallel, newly set English versions), while two of Horace’s Odes are heard in delicate settings by John Wilson. There are also works closely inspired by the ancients, such as Lawes’s ‘Tale out of Anacreon’, At dead low ebb of night, and two pleasingly eccentric ‘Sapphic’ cantatas by John Blow (Anthony Rooley’s liner note tells us that ‘Lesbian lays’ were all the rage in the 1690s!). Other highlights include Nicholas Lanier’s powerful depiction of Hero watching her beloved Leander drown, a rather sweet Shakespeare setting by Maurice Greene, and two jokey accounts by William Boyce of the Orpheus legend, seen from respective male and female viewpoints.
All are sung with Kirkby’s customary radiance of voice, technical agility and interpretative intelligence. I am sure the Classical Association would have been impressed by her close attention to text and vocal colour (I, alas, cannot comment on her Greek), and they would have to have been exceptionally dry old sticks not to be moved by her superbly judged accounts of the Lanier or of Lawes’s Orpheus’s Hymn to God. This really is the kind of intimate programme that this great singer does best, and with Anthony Rooley on sensitive form in his theorbo-lute accompaniments (some of them necessarily arrangements), this is not just ‘classical Kirkby’ but ‘classic’ too.
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