Blow By

This recording of duets by the great composers of the Restoration is one of the gems of Hyperion’s catalogue. It features the celebrated countertenors James Bowman and Michael Chance at the peak of their powers, and the combination of their two voices with the sympathetic accompaniment of The King’s Consort creates something uniquely glorious. Purcell was a countertenor himself and in his writing for the voice produced some of his most felicitous music. John Blow, Purcell’s predecessor and successor as organist of Westminster Abbey, reached his compositional zenith with the extended duet (almost a small cantata) on the subjects of Purcell’s tragic early death and inextinguishable influence.

While he made many groundbreaking singles, Kurtis Blow was never a consistent album artist, making this best-of collection his definitive artistic statement. Throughout the early '80s, Blow helped define what rap could do, and these tracks confirm his status as one of hip-hop's legendary acts.

John Blow’s opera, Venus and Adonis , explores and exploits the themes of power play, manipulation, and yearning. Venus’s reluctance to surrender coupled with Adonis’s innocence leads to both a tragic accident and poignant transcendence. The work was the first to have been written by a female librettist, Anne Finch.