Thousand Ways

This book draws on the theatrical thinking of Samuel Beckett and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to propose a method for research undertaken at the borders of performance and philosophy. Exploring how Beckett fabricates encounters with the impossible and the unthinkable in performance, it asks how philosophy can approach what cannot be thought while honouring and preserving its alterity. Employing its method, it creates a series of encounters between aspects of Beckett’s theatrical practice and a range of concepts drawn from Deleuze’s philosophy.

Purcell’s The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play not frequently performed in the late 17th century, nor very well regarded (“the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life” – Samuel Pepys’ diary, 1662). Despite this, the play would go on to work well within an opera, as the characters of Pyramus and Thisbe could conjure up singing and dancing accomplices. Purcell’s masterful composition, Gabrieli’s first-class performance, and McCreesh’s superb interpretation demonstrate why their recordings are seen as some of the best in classical music today.

With The Fairy Queen, Sébastien d’Hérin and Les Nouveaux Caractères set down on record their musical vision of one of Henry Purcell’s most compelling dramatic works. The 1692/1693 work dates from around half a century before two other Baroque scores which Les Nouveaux Caractères has tackled recently and received significant critical approval: Leclair’s Scylla et Glaucus and Rameau’s Les Surprises de l’Amour (the latter, like The Fairy Queen, appearing on Glossa).

Purcell’s The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play not frequently performed in the late 17th century, nor very well regarded (“the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life” - Samuel Pepys’ diary, 1662).

The year 1979 saw the death of one of the leading players in the ‘Baroque’ revolution, undoubtedly the most famous countertenor of the twentieth century. Alfred Deller had even achieved the supreme tour de force of convincing us that, three centuries earlier, Purcell had composed his songs for him! With him the public of the 1960s and 1970s discovered not only an absolutely inimitable timbre, but also the delights of a repertory that had been slumbering in libraries until then. Forty years after his death, thanks to the meticulous process of remastering harmonia mundi has carried out on the original tapes, Alfred Deller’s art seems more alive than ever!

A masterpiece of the ‘semi-opera’. In 1692, on the strength of the immense success of Dido & Aeneas and King Arthur, Purcell went on to produce The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer-Night’s Dream.

Americana/country singer-songwriters Kelly Willis, Melissa Carper, and Brennen Leigh team up for the Wonder Women of Country and release their first EP.