Purcell H Odes Pinnock

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.

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.

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.

Viola da gamba player Vittorio Ghielmi is the founder of the viol consort Il Suonar Parlante, which plays Purcell's Fantazias of Four Parts, mostly written in 1680. At that time, the viol was on the way to being considered an archaic instrument, having been largely replaced by the fretless members of the violin family. A consort of viols, though, was still the most convenient ensemble for playing contrapuntal music, and Purcell needed an outlet for adventurous self-expression as a break from his duties of writing conventional dance music for King Charles II. The fantasias he wrote are indeed very odd, particularly in their chromatic harmonies, many of which would not reappear with regularity in the Western musical vocabulary until the twentieth century.

On this release, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen continue their exploration of Purcell’s stunning music written for royal occasions on the third album in their acclaimed series. King Charles II liked to project a strong, stable, divinely legitimated image. Whilst that image had no basis in reality, the scale of his deception and financial skulduggery did not emerge until 19th-century historians discovered secret treaty documents between Charles and King Louis XIV of France.

Viola da gamba player Vittorio Ghielmi is the founder of the viol consort Il Suonar Parlante, which plays Purcell's Fantazias of Four Parts, mostly written in 1680. At that time, the viol was on the way to being considered an archaic instrument, having been largely replaced by the fretless members of the violin family. A consort of viols, though, was still the most convenient ensemble for playing contrapuntal music, and Purcell needed an outlet for adventurous self-expression as a break from his duties of writing conventional dance music for King Charles II. The fantasias he wrote are indeed very odd, particularly in their chromatic harmonies, many of which would not reappear with regularity in the Western musical vocabulary until the twentieth century.

Purcell’s genius abounds throughout the latest volume of The Sixteen’s celebrated exploration of his music for monarchy. Rarely recorded in recent years, Harry Christophers and his award-winning ensemble breathe fresh life into these exquisite works, including two Welcome Songs and one of Purcell’s most famous verse anthems, Rejoice in the Lord always.

Charles II's formal Restoration in 1660 marked both an end and a beginning: the end of England's republican experiment and the beginning of a long process of monarchical reconstruction; and with a politically accident-prone king on the throne, Charles's public relations machine could never rest. Purcell joined its small team of composer operatives just as the wave of Stuart propaganda swelled massively, and he surfed the wave with breathtaking panache, from his first court ode – the simple but rousing Welcome, Vicegerent of the mighty King – to the ambitious Fly, bold rebellion involving verse settings in up to seven parts and a six-part chorus.

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) looked like a Florentine prince, was hail-fellow-well-met in tavern and taproom, wrote for the church and also for the stage and salon, was in fact a most likeable young man, as well as a "very great Master of Musick." Except for his appointment as organist at the Chapel Royal and other churches, his compositions were the chief events of his life. Henry Purcell invented the English celebratory style in music.

In the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, Alison Balsom celebrates the heroic era of the Baroque trumpet in works by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and Henry Purcell (1658 or 1659-1695), whose anthems, odes, sinfonias and operas have provided the music for numerous royal celebrations from their own day to the present.