King Julien

Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, guided by François Lazarevitch’s virtuoso flute, have already led us along the roads of Ireland and Scotland, notably the High Road to Kilkenny (ALPHA 234), a great success in 2016. This time, they venture into England with an essentially secular programme devoted to Henry Purcell (1659-95), varying the mood by alternating between instrumental dances and songs performed by the English countertenor Tim Mead, including ‘O Solitude’ and ‘What power art thou’. While Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien have chosen these celebrated pieces for pleasure above all, with this English programme they also fill in a new piece in their jigsaw map of the United Kingdom. At the same time, they demonstrate the musical porosity of Ireland, Scotland and England – and the atypical colours of the small string ensemble complemented by two flutes, a harp and harpsichord/lute continuo further underline the fact.

After the success of For ever Fortune, early music from Scotland, François Lazarevitch continues his exploration of the ‘Celtic’ repertories with a new programme devoted to early Irish music. This repertory of old airs from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries consists of dances, songs in Gaelic and varied instrumental pieces: they tell tales of wars, of love, of strong drink and tobacco, of children and bards. A leading specialist in the flute and bagpipe families, François Lazarevitch opens out new horizons of colours and sounds. He has gathered around him here a number of distinguished performers of early music (including the fabulous Baroque violinist and fiddler David Greenberg) and invited the American tenor Robert Getchell, who cuts a very credible figure as a singer going back to his roots.