• About
  • Listening
    • Baroque
    • Bluegrass and Country
    • Classical Fusion
    • Classical Period
    • Early Music
    • Film soundtracks
    • Folk Music
    • Jazz
    • Modern Classical
    • Modern Pop Fusion
    • Musicals
    • Romantic Classical
    • Spoken word
    • World Music
  • Reading
    • Fiction
      • Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
      • Classic writers and their works
      • Contemporary Fiction
      • Crime and Detective Fiction
      • Fictionalised Biography
      • Historical Fiction
      • Horror
      • Lighter-hearted reads
      • Literary Fiction
      • Plays and Poetry
      • Romance
      • SF
      • Short stories
      • Western
      • Whimsy and Fantastical
    • Non-Fiction
      • Arts
      • Biography and Autobiography
      • Ethics, reflection, a meditative space
      • Food and Drink
      • Geography and Travel
      • Health and wellbeing
      • History and Social History
      • Philosophy of Mind
      • Science and nature
      • Society; Politics; Economics
  • Reading the 20th Century
  • Watching
    • Documentary
    • Film
    • Staged Production
    • TV
  • Shouting From The Soapbox
    • Arts Soapbox
    • Chitchat
    • Philosophical Soapbox
    • Science and Health Soapbox
  • Interviews / Q + A
  • Indexes
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
    • Sound Index
      • Composers Index
      • Performers Index
    • Filmed Index

Lady Fancifull

~ adventures in a mainly literary obsession

Lady Fancifull

Tag Archives: Alfred Deller

Purcell – Music for A While (Alfred Deller)

18 Monday Nov 2013

Posted by Lady Fancifull in Baroque, Listening

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alfred Deller, Baroque Music, countertenor, English Baroque, Purcell

Stolen Away To Elfland

Deller PurcellAlfred Deller, celebrated English countertenor, who was equally adept at singing English folk music and early music, is here enchanting in these songs by Purcell. There is a curious sort of limpid ethereal floating to his voice, something other-worldly, which takes this listener, at least out of the 21st century, and makes me feel I have somehow been transported to Arcadia, a land of impossible green-ness and clarity, where people might indeed be spirited away by Faerie Folk! The voice is disembodied, appearing to magically float in the air. Listen to it too long at times of betwixt and between (dusk and dawn) and you might be stolen away by elves, like Thomas A Rhymer! The richly pure vocals float above the most warmly embodied of string instruments, a simple cello accompaniment, which is twined about by harpsichord on some tracks. Angelic bliss indeed.

Forgive the purple prose, but Deller’s voice is like a fantastical invention, produced not through technical artifice (twiddled synthetically in a recording studio) but somehow, impossibly, by Deller himself. He doesn’t seem to strain to produce the sound, it is a natural artifice!

Loss of a star as not all of the songs are equally riveting and valid – this is down to the 550px-Henry_Purcell_by_John_Clostermanspecific Purcell pieces, rather than to Deller. The 7 minute long From Rosy Bow’rs in particular lasted every one of its 7 minutes, whereas the other long track, The Plaint was sheer delight.

Purcell – Music For A While – Alfred Deller Amazon UK
Purcell – Music For A While – Alfred Deller Amazon USA

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Print
  • Email
  • More
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Page Indexes

  • About
    • Index of Bookieness – Fiction
    • Index of Bookieness – Non-Fiction
    • Index of authors
    • Index of titles
    • 20th Century Index
  • Sound Index
    • Composers Index
    • Performers Index
  • Filmed Index

Genres

Archives

March 2021
M T W T F S S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Mar    

Posts Getting Perused

  • William Butler Yeats - Vacillation
    William Butler Yeats - Vacillation
  • Christopher Isherwood - Goodbye to Berlin
    Christopher Isherwood - Goodbye to Berlin
  • Barbara Vine - House of Stairs
    Barbara Vine - House of Stairs
  • H.E.Bates - Love for Lydia
    H.E.Bates - Love for Lydia
  • Joel Dicker - The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair
    Joel Dicker - The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair
  • Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
    Christiane Ritter - A Woman In The Polar Night
  • Ross Welford - Time Travelling With A Hamster
    Ross Welford - Time Travelling With A Hamster
  • Kenwood Ladies' Pond Association - Wild Swimming Walks
    Kenwood Ladies' Pond Association - Wild Swimming Walks

Recent Posts

  • Bart Van Es – The Cut Out Girl
  • Joan Baez – Vol 1
  • J.S.Bach – Goldberg Variations – Zhu Xiao-Mei
  • Zhu Xiao-Mei – The Secret Piano
  • Jane Harper – The Lost Man

NetGalley Badges

Fancifull Stats

  • 136,152 hits
Follow Lady Fancifull on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Follow on Bloglovin

Tags

1930s setting Adult Faerie Tale Andrew Greig Arvo Pärt Autobiography baroque Beryl Bainbridge Biography Biography as Fiction Bits and Bobs Bits and Pieces Book Review Books about Books Cats Children's Book Review Classical music Classical music review Classic Crime Fiction Colm Toibin Cookery Book Crime Fiction David Mitchell Dystopia Espionage Ethics Fantasy Fiction Feminism Film review First World War Folk Music Food Industry France Gay and Lesbian Literature Ghost story Golden-Age Crime Fiction Graham Greene Health and wellbeing Historical Fiction History Humour Humour and Wit Ireland Irish writer Irvin D. Yalom Janice Galloway Japan Literary Fiction Literary pastiche Lynn Shepherd Marcus Sedgwick Meditation Mick Herron Minimalism Music review Myths and Legends Neil Gaiman Ngaio Marsh Novels about America Other Stuff Patrick Flanery Patrick Hamilton Perfumery Philip Glass Philosophy Police Procedural Post-Apocalypse Psychiatry Psychological Thriller Psychology Psychotherapy Publication Day Reading Rebecca Mascull Reflection Robert Harris Rose Tremain Russian Revolution sacred music Sadie Jones Sci-Fi Science and nature Scottish writer Second World War SF Shakespeare Short stories Simon Mawer Soapbox Spy thriller Susan Hill Tana French The Cold War The Natural World TV Drama Victorian set fiction Whimsy and Fantasy Fiction William Boyd World music review Writing Young Adult Fiction

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×
    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
    Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
    To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
    %d bloggers like this: