Purcell: Love's Goddess sure was Blind (Includes The Complete Funeral Music for Queen Mary)

"This magnificent contribution … breaks new ground in scholarship, matching it with performances of the highest order ... the elegy O Dive Custos, with the astonishingly boy-like voices of Libby Crabtree and Carys Lane, is the unforgettable high point in this superb tribute to Purcell and his Queen." BBC Music Magazine

Love's Goddess Sure was Blind, written in exuberant and florid style for the birthday of the much loved young Queen Mary ends, extraordinarily, with a reflection on the grief her eventual death would provoke. It was less than six years later that the prophesied mourning became a reality, when, in her early thirties, she succumbed to smallpox. Purcell's eloquent compositions for her funeral are acknowledged as some of his most powerful masterpieces marrying a genuine of expression of grief (Purcell greatly admired the witty, musical Mary) with a characteristic sophistication of style.