in Choir & Organ (Jul, 2014)
This disc is a bit of a hotch-potch, though none the less enjoyable for that. It covers pretty much all the genres in which Purcell wrote: sacred works sit cheek by jowl with theatre music. Famous excerpts from Dido and Aeneas (‘To the Hills and the Vales’) and King Arthur (the erotic-sounding Act IV, Lully-influenced passacaglia ‘How happy the lover’, the song for the Cold Genius and ‘Fairest Isle’) and the Ode to St Cecilia are included alongside equally well-known items from Purcell’s church music such as the Funeral Music for Queen Mary. What completely lifts this CD out of the ordi- nary, making it stand head and shoulders above …
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in Early Music Today (Sep, 2014)
Patrick Ayrton, the director of Les Inventions, describes this as ‘an invitation to stroll through the world of one of England’s greatest composers’. Well, perhaps a couple of continents. As Ayrton himself notes, the output of few composers is as diverse as Purcell’s, and we are here concerned largely with sacred and secular choral music. The stroll turns out to be most agreeable, with many moments to savour along the way. The performances at times touch excellence and, with one arguable exception, are never less than very good. The exception is the famous ‘Cold Song’ from King Arthur, given with too much imposed artifice; the song is striking enough without trying …
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