James Bowman must surely be the finest vocal interpreter of Purcell today. His grasp of sentiment, his sense of timing, and his enunciation, are unsurpassed…

Though many know it only in a later arrangement for soloists and choruses, Handel wrote this masque for five singers with a small orchestra. Despite the ending (the giant Polyphemus crushes Acis with a rock), the music suggests springtime and young love. There's humor, too: Polyphemus–so big, so dumb, so pleased with himself– is a comic baritone's dream. George doesn't capture all of the role's humor, but he is vocally well-cast. McFadden sometimes pushes her voice into a wobble, but her Galatea is appealing and sweetly sung. Best are Covey-Crump's graceful Damon (the voice of reason) and Ainsley's youthful, high-spirited Acis. (Ainsley also sings the slight but attractive "Look down.") The ensemble numbers are delightful, and Robert King brings the entire thing off splendidly.

"Why present just Handel's Coronation Anthems for King George II when you can present the whole Coronation?" seems to be the proposition that underlies this two-disc set, entitled The Coronation of King George II, 1727. And, thrillingly performed by Robert King directing the King's Consort and the Choir of the King's Consort, there seems no good reason not to, and every good reason to, do just that. King, who has led many stirring recordings of Handel's oratorios in his time, turns in splendid performances of the four Coronation Anthems, along with superb performances of ceremonial choral music by Tallis, Purcell, Gibbons, Blow, Farmer, and Child.

'James Bowman is on impressive form and his admirers need not hesitate here' (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs) D'excellentes interprétations' (Ecouter, Voir, France) 'After hearing the first three notes of Cantata 170 my expectations of this recording were high. I was not disappointed' (Hi Fi News)

Arise, my muse dates from 1690, the second of six years in which Purcell was commissioned to write an Ode for the birthday of Queen Mary. That year saw a change in the orchestral scoring of Purcell’s Odes, with the addition of wind and brass instruments (other than the pair of recorders that had featured on various previous occasions) to the established string texture. For this work, with an unusually inspired libretto, Purcell added pairs of oboes, recorders and trumpets, and also a second viola to the string section, making possible sounds of great richness.

For his 1694 offering to the Queen, Come ye sons of Art, away, Purcell was on sparkling form, and produced an Ode markedly different to the majority of the twenty-two works which had preceded it. The forces utilized were greater than normal, with an orchestra replacing the more usual single strings, and there was a clearly defined role for the chorus. Recent successes on the stage had led to this more expansive style of composition, and the inspired text (probably by Nahum Tate), full of references to music and musical instruments, was one which gave Purcell’s fertile imagination plenty of source material.

With William and Mary duly crowned there was more topical material available than usual, and the Stewards commissioned the best available author and composer to celebrate in ‘a very splendid Entertainment of all sorts of Vocal and Instrumental Musick’. Thomas D’Urfey included the libretto in his Pills to Purge Melancholy, describing it as ‘An Ode on the Assembly of the Nobility and Gentry of the City and County of York, at the Anniversary Feast, March the 27th, 1690. Set to Musick by Mr. Henry Purcell. One of the finest Compositions he ever made, and cost £100 the performing’. Of old, when heroes thought it base was ostensibly a history of York from Roman times onwards, but it also contained allegories of the Glorious Revolution. Despite D’Urfey’s sometimes contrived text, Purcell responds with music of high quality.

Of the program’s seven concertos, only two—one by each composer—are conventional solo concertos. Albinoni, who is credited with inventing the genre, actually wrote as many double concertos as solo concertos; two of them are included on the disc, along with a concerto grosso scored for an unlikely combination of five winds and continuo. Vivaldi, who refined Albinoni’s concept, is represented by a brace of concertos for pairs of oboes and clarinets. Therein lies the fun of this marvelous and unexpected release.

Purcell’s fourth birthday Ode for the Queen, Love’s goddess sure was blind, was the most intimate of the six, scored for just strings and a pair of recorders. The two-section Symphony is one of Purcell’s finest, especially richly scored. The noble, yet wistful, first part is dominated by a six-note falling scale and a ravishing melody (which comes only once in the violins, but three times in the viola), all wrapped in glorious harmony. The triple-time second section at first glance appears lighter in character, but (as with so much of Purcell’s music, which needs to be played to discover its true riches) in practice still has an underlying current of melancholy, heightened at the end as the opening mood returns.

Purcell and the majority of the British public were genuinely fond of Queen Mary, who with William replaced King James on the throne when he fled to the continent. London musicians breathed a collective sigh of relief at the Glorious Revolution and Purcell composed six of his finest Odes to honour his new Queen’s birthday.

Ye tuneful Muses was written in 1686, most probably to celebrate the return of the Court from Windsor to Whitehall on 1 October. As the birthday of King James II fell on 14 October some scholars have suggested it is possible that the celebrations were combined, for the diarist Luttrell recorded that the birthday was ‘observed with great solemnity … the day concluded with ringing of bells, bonefires and a ball at Court’, but there is little in the text to suggest this was so. That anonymous author did however provide Purcell with a good libretto, full of variety and vivid material for compositional inspiration, especially in its references to music and musical instruments and, as ever, Purcell did not fail.

Fly, bold rebellion was one of Purcell’s early Welcome Songs, composed for Charles II in 1683. The manuscript gives no indication of the date of the first performance, but it seems evident from the anonymous author of the words that it was written shortly after the discovery of the Rye House Plot, which took place in June 1683. The Ode thus would seem likely to have been performed to celebrate Charles’s return from Windsor to Whitehall at the end of June, or perhaps later in the year on his return to London from Winchester (25 September) or Newmarket (20 October). After the splendid two-part Symphony, the Ode contains the already established selection of choruses, trios and solos, interspersed with Purcell’s deliciously scored string ritornelli.

The last, and greatest, of Purcell’s four Odes to St Cecilia, Hail! bright Cecilia was composed to a text by Nicholas Brady in 1692 in honour of the feast day of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of musicians. It is a celebratory work comprising of masterful instrumental sections, majestic choruses, and varied solos, duets and trios. Written in 1695, Who can from joy refrain? was composed as an ode celebrating the Duke of Gloucester’s sixth birthday. Both these works reveal the unparalleled richness of the composer’s musical invention and explain why, more than three hundred years later, Henry Purcell is still regarded as one of Britain’s finest composers.

The present recording was accomplished in 2020 by socially distanced musicians, and director Robert King puts things in perspective, observing in his notes that Henry Purcell lived through the London plague of 1665, during which 15 percent of the city's population perished.

Latest release on VIVAT brings Mendelssohn’s astonishing reconstruction of Handel’s great oratorio Israel in Egypt. Mendelssohn’s 1833 Düsseldorf performance has been painstakingly reconstructed from fragments and sources across Europe: the large and colourful orchestra, playing nineteenth-century instruments, produces vivid new sonorities, and the double choir sings magnificently. Listeners familiar with Handel’s 1739 version will also find new numbers, significant changes to the order of movements and very different orchestrations.