Purcell Trumpet and Choral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Henry Purcell
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 7/1996
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 63
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 553444
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Te Deum and Jubilate |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Choir of the Golden Age Christopher Robson, Alto Henry Purcell, Composer Ian Honeyman, Tenor Jeni Bern, Soprano Orchestra of the Golden Age Robert Glenton, Conductor Susan Bisatt, Soprano Thomas Guthrie, Bass William Purefoy, Alto |
| (The) Noise of Foreign Wars |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Choir of the Golden Age Christopher Robson, Alto Henry Purcell, Composer Ian Honeyman, Tenor Jeni Bern, Soprano Orchestra of the Golden Age Robert Glenton, Conductor Susan Bisatt, Soprano Thomas Guthrie, Bass William Purefoy, Alto |
| St Cecilia's Day Ode, 'Raise, raise the voice' |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Choir of the Golden Age Christopher Robson, Alto Henry Purcell, Composer Ian Honeyman, Tenor Jeni Bern, Soprano Orchestra of the Golden Age Robert Glenton, Conductor Susan Bisatt, Soprano Thomas Guthrie, Bass William Purefoy, Alto |
| St Cecilia's Day Ode, 'Welcome to all the pleasures' |
Henry Purcell, Composer
Choir of the Golden Age Christopher Robson, Alto Henry Purcell, Composer Ian Honeyman, Tenor Jeni Bern, Soprano Orchestra of the Golden Age Robert Glenton, Conductor Susan Bisatt, Soprano Thomas Guthrie, Bass William Purefoy, Alto |
| Sonata for Trumpet and Strings No. 1 |
Henry Purcell, Composer
David Staff, Trumpet Henry Purcell, Composer Orchestra of the Golden Age Robert Glenton, Conductor |
Author: Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
In Purcell lore, Ode for St Cecilia’s Day – listed without a date – more often than not suggests the great Hail bright Cecilia of 1692. But never mind, Purcell’s inaugural Cecilian ode, Welcome to all the pleasures, of nine years earlier is a gem in its own right and contains splendid music, including the spellbinding air, “Here the deities approve”. The catalogue already boasts two impressive accounts by Andrew Parrott and Robert King but this thoughtful and lucid reading stands up well against more polished competition. If the string playing is comparatively prosaic and emotionally recessed in the mysterious opening (where Parrott conveys a spirit of scientific enterprise, prescient of the Newtonian allusions in the later ode), Robert Glenton has a purposeful approach which allows the work to unfold with natural ebb and flow. The airs are well served by the soloists and the strings, suitably languid in the exquisite and distinctive ritornellos; countertenors reign here, as they do in King’s memorable performance with James Bowman, rather than the persuasive, if not desirably ubiquitous, solution of high tenors at low pitch proposed by Parrott.
The Choir and Orchestra of the Golden Age, a promising new period-instrument ensemble based in Manchester, are a vital and responsive group of musicians, as they demonstrate in committed and robust performances of the Te Deum and Jubilate (which frame the programme). Such a gung-ho approach is certainly ideal for the premiere recording of what Purcell scholar, Bruce Wood, calls “a battered yet imposing musical torso”: The Noise of Foreign Wars is an incomplete court ode, almost certainly written by Purcell but abandoned in view of increasing political unrest at the end of James II’s reign in 1688.
More established, and another of Purcell’s St Cecilia Day Odes,Raise, raise the voice, starts comparatively anonymously until another superb ground bass takes all the plaudits. As with the countertenors, incomplete documentation leaves us in the dark as to which soprano actually sings it. Whoever, there is less a sense of the flexible nonchalance and grace in the words, as projected so effectively by Gillian Fisher for King. David Staff is an effervescent and tasteful soloist in Purcell’s Trumpet Sonata, which acts as a satisfying interlude to the vocal numbers. There is a slightly artificial-sounding reverberance at times and one poor edit point just before the end of the 1683 Ode, but there is much to enjoy here.'
The Choir and Orchestra of the Golden Age, a promising new period-instrument ensemble based in Manchester, are a vital and responsive group of musicians, as they demonstrate in committed and robust performances of the Te Deum and Jubilate (which frame the programme). Such a gung-ho approach is certainly ideal for the premiere recording of what Purcell scholar, Bruce Wood, calls “a battered yet imposing musical torso”: The Noise of Foreign Wars is an incomplete court ode, almost certainly written by Purcell but abandoned in view of increasing political unrest at the end of James II’s reign in 1688.
More established, and another of Purcell’s St Cecilia Day Odes,
Purcell Trumpet and Choral Works
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