All Hail The Queen

…Parrott parades his smooth and integrated forces with less instant theatricality. Instead we have here a typically homogeneous and unfolding scenario: how organically and gently "Tis Nature's voice" emerges, with Rogers Covey-Crump expressing the passions with a wonderful air of mystery. So too, "Soul of the world" — what a transcendent concluding passage — which has never been bettered for atmosphere and clarity of ensemble. The solo singing here is good (there is some exquisite work from Emma Kirkby and from tenors Charles Daniels and Paul Elliott in "In vain the am'rous flute").

This second volume completes Decca's compact reissue of Britten conducting his own operas. As with the first volume, it is a self-recommending testament to the synergy of Britten's talents as a composer and conductor, and his continuing preeminence as a recorded interpreter of his own music.

This eight-disc set includes odes and theater pieces; and Gardiner's performances are more than excellent. He synthesizes the spare delicacy and ceremonial grandeur of Purcell's music in performances that are very satisfying.

In 'The Fairy Queen,' two artistic geniuses met. The scenario is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; the music is by Henry Purcell, the greatest English composer of his day. The result is one of the first great operas, a dazzling display of music and emotion that has lost none of its power since its premiere in 1692. Much of the music has come to have a life beyond the opera itself: songs such as "The Plaint," "Thrice Happy Lovers" and "Hark! The Echoing air" now regularly grace the concert hall stage, a delight for singers and audiences alike.

On the strength of the immense success of Dido & Aeneas and King Arthur, in 1692 Purcell went on to produce The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer-Night’s Dream. The work is, in fact, a ‘semi-opera’, or ‘opera with dialogue’, in which only some of the crucial scenes are provided with music. But this version of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream by the ‘Orpheus Britannicus’ became almost as famous as the play that inspired it, with its love scenes, its supernatural scenes and its innate sense of musical humour investing it with an irresistible savour and enchantment.

Alfred Deller was the first renowned countertenor. As a child, Deller studied voice first with his father as a boy soprano, and when his voice changed he continued his singing as a countertenor. He joined the Canterbury Cathedral choir in 1940, where Michael Tippett heard him and invited him to London to make his debut. He came to the attention of the English public after a 1946 radio broadcast of Purcell's Come, ye sons of art, away. During the early years of his career, he concentrated on performing English Baroque and pre-Baroque composers such as Purcell and Dowland. In 1950 he formed the Deller Consort, a group which dedicated itself to performing early music using authentic performance practice. For many years, the group toured Europe and the Americas, bringing the music of this period to a new public…