A Fancy: Fantasy on English Airs & Tunes

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PURCELL / GIBBONS / LOCKE / HART / DRAGHI / etc
A Fancy: Fantasy on English Airs & Tunes
Bertrand Cuiller (conductor, organ) & Rachel Redmond (soprano) / Le Caravansérail

[ Harmonia Mundi / CD ]

Release Date: Tuesday 10 October 2017

In their first recording for harmonia mundi, Bertrand Cuiller and the musicians of Le Caravansérail immerse us in the dreamlike world of the London theatre of the 17th century. Incidental music, airs, dances and inventive melodies combining the English tradition and French and Italian innovations are the ingredients that make up the five imaginary tableaux of this reconstruction of the period, illuminated by the voice of the distinguished soprano, Rachel Redmond.

Bertrand Cuiller studied with Christophe Rousset and Pierre Hantaï and was a prizewinner at the Bruges International Harpsichord competition. He has played with such prestigious ensembles as Le Concert Spirituel, Stradivaria, Le Poème Harmonique and La Rêveuse and has recorded for Alpha and Mirare.

"The instrumental playing under Bertrand Cuiller is supple and vivid, but the real star of the show here is soprano Rachel Redmond: she sings an Akeyrode drinking song with bright swagger and articulates Purcell's lamenting O Solitude with soft, grainy intimacy. She's a singer of real personality." The Guardian

Tracks:

includes

Akeyrode:
From drinking of Sack by the Pottle

Draghi, G B:
Where art thou, God of Dreams (from Romulus and Hersilia, 1682)
Must I ever sigh in vain?

Gibbons, C:
Fly, my children

Grabu:
O jealousy!

Hart, James:
Adieu to the Pleasures and Follies

Locke:
Curtain Tune from The Tempest
The Tempest: The Second Musicke - Lilk

Purcell:
Hornpipe
I see she flies me ev'rywhere (from Aureng-Zebe or The Great Mogul, Z573)
O solitude, my sweetest choice, Z406
Twas within a furlong of Edinburgh Town (from The Mock Marriage, Z605)
Ah me! to many deaths (from Regulus or The Faction of Carthage, Z586)
See, even Night herself is here (from King Arthur, Z628)