Nicholas Henry

HENRY PURCELL'S chamber opera, "Dido and Aeneas," is plentifully represented on disk, but Nicholas McGegan's new recording, with the Philharmonia Baroque and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge is the freshest and most compelling since Andrew Parrott's magnificent account of 1981 (on Chandos). Mr. McGegan's soloists – Lorraine Hunt as Dido, Lisa Saffer as Belinda and Michael Dean as Aeneas – work wonders with the concise characterizations provided by Purcell and his librettist, Nahum Tate.

Lutenist, singer and composer Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, presided for a short while over one of the most cultivated European courts. Sirinu, with imaginative deployment of instrumental colour, performs the songs, consort music and arrangements attributed to Henry Tudor, including the well-known ‘Pastyme with good companye’. A fascinating disc.

The songs of late Renaissance and early Baroque England have been sliced and diced in various ways in concert and recorded programming, but the configuration here seems to be unique. The tenor Nicholas Phan, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, devised the program himself: pointing out "how little human experience has changed over the centuries" and that Dowland's melancholia had much in common with the Romantics' veneration of the lovesick solitary hero (both debatable ideas, but both stimulating), he assembles what he calls a pastiche song cycle from compositions by Purcell, Dowland, John Blow, and other lesser-known lights.

For some reason, the Jazz in Paris series has put together a collection of music featuring these three vocalists. Except for the fact that all three recorded in Paris, there appears to be little connection. The music is still excellent however. The first 8 tracks by Harold Nicholas show off his excellence in covering standards. "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", with its last verse in French, is a highlight. June Richmond, accompanied by the Quincy Jones Orchestra, sings "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues" through "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea". Excellent renditions all. The last two tracks, by Henry Bey and the Bey Sisters, are nice, but give only a small introduction to their music.