Purcell – Music for A While (Alfred Deller)

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

Stolen Away To Elfland

Alfred 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 specific 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

Vivaldi – Stabat mater. David Daniels, Fabio Biondi, Europa Galante

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baroque, Classical music, countertenor, David Daniels, Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi, Music review, sacred music, Vivaldi

I first came across the American counter-tenor David Daniels in a Live at the Met in HD showing of The Enchanted Isle, and immediately became absolutely captivated by and addicted to, this voice.

It is probably wrong (though understandable) to focus almost completely on the countertenor here, as of course we have a whole group of musicians involved in the experience, so the wonderfulness is a shared production, but the pieces do place the singer centre stage, and it is the role of the musicians to provide unobtrusive, fabulously sensitive support to the strange magic of the countertenor. And Biondi and Europa Galanti are exactly in place, providing this.

There are 3 pieces of music here, the Stabat Mater, Nisi Dominus (Psalm 26) and Longe Mala. I can’t pick apart the technicalities of the pieces, only surrender to them, and to this beautiful, strange, warm and yet ethereal, effortless and brilliantly sparkling voice, a voice seems to come from some angelic realm – not a little cherub of an angel, but an angel whose shining is too bright to look upon. Possibly I’m still carrying the image of Daniels as the almost on the edge of dark magician (Prospero) from The Enchanted Isle here, but this voice really is almost, properly, something truly magical. Surely Daniels has been possessed by some musical elemental, surrendered himself to some celestial entity of singing. No words can convey it…listen and surrender.

The penultimate track of Longe Mala particularly is so profoundly beautiful in its quiet, reflective yearning that it reaches the point where the pleasure in the passing moments is almost too much to bear.

(and other, fortunately unwritten passages, too purple and fulsome with praise to want to read, or write!) Just buy this!
Vivaldi Stabat Mater

Pergolesi – Stabat mater. Kirkby, Bowman, Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music

Tags

Academy of Ancient Music, baroque, Christopher Hogwood, Classical music, countertenor, Emma Kirkby, James Bowman, Music review, Pergolesi, sacred music

Almost unbearable in plangent magic

What a piece of work this is. I have had this version for a while, and recently bought the David Daniels, Biondi Europa Galante version, Pergolesi Stabat Mater Salve Regina because of the glorious seduction of the Daniels/Biondi/Europa Galante team on the Vivaldi – Stabat Mater, Etc, principally because Daniels is the countertenor par excellence for me.

However, trying to compare these 2 versions this wins, despite the fact of Daniels on the other. Kirkby’s ethereal purity of voice wins out big time for me over Röschmann, but Daniels, ah Daniels takes the biscuit over Bowman, on the solo countertenor sections, though the blend of Kirkby and Bowman together, how their voices weave, is utterly beautiful. – as is the richer, fleshier blend of Daniels and Roschmann – but for me Roschmann is far too sumptuously voluptuous for this piece – not to mention Europa Galante take the music with such bounce, it is almost terpsichorean. Full of vibrancy, brio, opulence – operatic and theatrical.

To come back, however to Kirkby, Hogwood, Academy of Ancient Music and Bowman. Well, to be most particular, come back to Kirkby. In her vocal lines the spiritual, sacred nature of the piece is expressed most tenderly, most yearningly,. However flamboyant and brilliant the music itself is, in the weaving of its lines, this is ultimately NOT an operatic piece, there is a sense of loss, and grief and desolation not to mention surrender which is there. The Hogwood et al is more austere, more lachrymosa, more nakedly suffering. I believe the emotion in this version, because as listener I am pulled in to inhabit it. Yes of course the music itself does have an almost muscular spring to it, but the Hogwood reins it in, creating a tension which is appropriate, whereas Europa Galante go bouncy castle, which feels wrong as if it wrongs the nature of the piece. Unlike the Vivaldi Stabat Mater mentioned earlier the Europa Galante Pergolesi does not break and melt my heart

This Hogwood version is a piece of devotion, the Galante an artwork suggesting devotion

Pergolesi Kirkby